#what research about social and cultural psychology have we done???? where did i miss that???

[tradedsymmetry]

what I want to write in my discussion post replies for my art history class: "I think you're all fucking nuts and/or I'm the only one who actually watched this movie and didn't paste a discussion reply directly from an AI chatbot."

what I actually write in my discussion post replies for my art history class: nothing, because everyone is fucking nuts and I feel like all of these replies were written by AI and I don't know how to deal with that.

[findinghiddenisles]

Literally FUCK anyone who continues to perpetuarte and normalize rape scenes or sexual humiliation as part of women’s story arcs. You deserve nothing but a life full of misery and malcontent. Especially, men.

I’ve ran into it thrice in the last week with new content and it’s absolutely outrageous how little people actually think for their bloody selves. These aspects are hardly ever part of men’s stories. Nope. Men are the punishers, the rapists, the ones in control and with power. It’s the women being violated. The female body being degraded. And people just go along with it as if this degradation is nothing.

And yet so many people wonder why the majority of women are the ones in absuive relationships, have trouble getting out of them, are the ones being abused, mistreated. BECAUSE YOU MORONS KEEP NORMALIZING IT. It’s not cause we are weak or fragile or helpless by the definition of our sex. It’s because for the last several millennia we’ve been conditioned to accept being violated as a part of girlhood and womanhood.

You know I’m sitting here reading Lore Olympus and absolutely enjoying the story. And then Apollo rapes Persephone. Like dude. Why did that have to be a part of her story? You could absolutely have something else ANYTHING ELSE that changes her way of thinking without it being RAPE? Because once again men aren’t violated as part of their story arcs. That doesn’t happen to men in media. Nope. But it’s consistently part of women’s stories. I’ve seen it on TV, in movies, in comics, in anime, in books. EVERYWHERE.

I’m tired of this bullshit.

And yes, ANYTHING BUT ENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT to sex is rape.

And I love hearing the brainworm excuses:

“Oh but I have a right to write/draw/produce what I want“ or “rape kink/BDSM is hot and I’m consenting to it” and “it happens in real life”

1. Yeah, sure, you can but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an impact though. We don’t live in a vacuum and you’re normalizing rape, especially rape against women, which is a HUGE issue seeing as we are 90% of rape victims.

2. I don’t give a fuck if you’re consenting to the illusion of being raped or harmed—you still seriously have to consider how the fuck YOUVE been socialized to find that arousing. To find being in pain arousing. And another thing...why is your partner? Someone who is supposed to care about you? Getting off to you in pain? Like that’s just another part of this being normalized. And if you aren’t catching my drift...let’s think of this whole daddy kink too....y’all do realize your man is getting off to you acting like a child? If you don’t find that creepy—mmm that’s an ISSUE.

3. It happens in real life because you keep perpetuating and normalizing SEXUAL ASSAULT, you ingrate.

And oh here it comes. “You’re such a prude” or “you don’t know what you’re talking about” or “you’re just angry cause you don’t have a man” or “you’re being insulting no one will listen to you”

1.I know what I’m talking about because I’ve done the research. I’ve asked my questions. I’ve been in spaces where these matters were discussed professionally and outside of that setting. I’ve read the psychology and I’ve even studied ancient female cultures. Seen the difference. So, yeah, I’ve seen the in’s and outs and it’s still revolting.

2.And why does a woman not having a male partner somehow a bad thing? You notice that recurring thing of women being shamed for being single. Dude.

3.Creating/sharing/praising nonsense where women are raped orhumiliated publicly absolutely makes you a person who has done something bad and you deserve all the previously mentioned insults. It doesn’t mean you can’t change. It just means I’m done tolerating it.

All in all, this’ll just keep happening until you realize women suffering like this isn’t normal and it’s part of systematic oppression based on our sex.

And some of you will recognize that there’s a problem here but then somehow don’t think that the aforementioned reasons are the cause for the issue.

No, this doesn’t happen overnight. It didn’t for me. It took many year of self-reflection and educating myself to get to this point of understanding WHY female violation is so normalized and WHY it isn’t ok. So, I go to bed knowing it isn’t just in my head.

I’m an astrophysicist with a lot of experience and education under my belt. I don’t care anymore. I’m going to write and draw and compose music and do what I want in peace because I know I have a clear conscious that I don’t enjoy other women or female character’s being violated. :)))~~~~

This is why so many WOC especially indigenous and black women continue to go missing because we are seen as objects. And this perpetuates that.

You can’t change my mind guys and I’m not wrong. 🤷🏽‍♀️

[skullsandwineglasses]

Life Lessons

The things you thought you wanted when you were 18 are very different from the things that you realize are important when you’re 24. 

1. Meet cutes

You fantasize about running into a stranger at a coffee shop, a book store, a library aisle, a grocery store lineup, etc and that you’ll click with them right away. You think “the one” is out there somewhere. But Ashley from bestdressed put it best: do you really think that out of the 7 or 8 billion or so people on the planet, you were born down the street or a city away from your soulmate? How is life going to be that convenient?

I thought college would be my Debut(TM), especially after a comfortable but uneventful time in high school. But college was quite anticlimactic. I was even less social if that was even possible. It’s hard to make friends when you’re not forced to sit next to the same people everyday. You instead meet people from afar who seem to be living, breathing real-life protagonists: beautiful, smart, witty, stylish, artsy, outspoken. I found myself trying to emulate them. I felt like I was falling behind in terms of who I should be in life. 

I tried to take control. If you don’t put yourself out there, how would meet cutes ever happen? So,

I go to coffee shops: but everyone’s too busy to look up from the work on their laptop screens to pay any attention to anyone else. 

I go to bookstores: but everyone’s too busy scanning the titles on the shelves to pay any attention to anyone else. 

I go to the library: see coffee shop.

I’m in the grocery store and someone asks me about the best coconut milk to use for curry: they get their answer and leave. 

I go to a jazz bar: again, everyone’s too busy listening to the band to pay any attention to anyone else.

I go to a swing dance social night: but everyone’s too busy trying to dance with as many different partners as possible in order to diversify their skills to linger any attention on anyone

You can’t say I didn’t try. 

Bonus:

Imagine you’re feeling bummed that you got assigned an aisle seat on the plane, only to approach your seat and see that a cute guy is sitting in the window seat next to yours. Could this be the meet cute you’ve been waiting for? You sit down. He says hi. You return the greeting a little too excitedly. You move to the fasten your seat belt. He speaks again: “So, my girlfriend has a window seat a couple rows back. I was wondering if you...”

Stunned, you pull the seat belt back and get up, gathering your stuff. “Oh yea, for sure, no bother at all. I wanted a window seat anyway.”

I kid you not. Cringe writes itself. It was like the opening of a bad romcom where the side character has one romantic failure after another. 

-> Moral of the story: Don’t expect to arrive at a place hoping that you’ll lock eyes with someone across the room. People go to places for the services that the place provides, and so they’ll be focused on their purpose for having gone to said place. Taylor Swift songs and YA novels did a wonderful job of misinforming me of how indifferent the social environment is like in public spaces. 

2. Exchanging phone numbers

So, maybe someone finally asks for your number. You part ways at the subway station. He promises to talk to you soon. But after 3 days, you wonder why he hasn’t texted you yet. You get a text from him Sunday morning asking you to meet for coffee that evening. You’re outside the cafe at 7:15, waiting. He texts you apologizing for being late because he was jogging around the lake and lost track of time. He says he’s on his way. You never hear from him again. 

-> Moral of the story: Even if you do ending up having a cute first encounter with someone at a subway station, it doesn’t mean things will work out. I’ve been ghosted like this 3 times. It’s gets harder trying to give men the benefit of the doubt each time.

I had thought that my self worth depended on how many strangers would approach me for my number. I thought that being liked was the only way to be validated. And while being asked for your number is flattering the first time, the illusion quickly shatters when you learn that the success of a relationship hinges on more than just the circumstance of the first meeting. 

3. Reading signs

You’re in line at the airport after returning from a conference trip, waiting to get through customs. You finally reach the customs officer who asks about the reason for your trip. 

“A conference,” you say.

“For?”

“Narrative. You know, like storytelling”

He hands you back your passport. “So are you an author?”

“Oh no, I just study the psychology of storytelling”

His face lights up. “Wow yes, storytelling is so important. It’s the foundation of civilization. That’s great”

“I’m glad you’re able to appreciate it. Not many people do when I tell them.”

“Well that’s because they don’t understand how important storytelling is to the basis of civilization. And for me too as someone who works in law enforcement.”

“Yes, for sure,” you say nodding. You look at the line behind you and start to move to leave.

“Well, it’s too bad we can’t talk more. Have a great day, miss”.

You walk towards the exit where the baggage claim is, and your head’s a blur. Was he...flirting? You’ve never met a stranger who was that interested in your research before, much less a border officer who was willing to stall the line just to ask you more about what you do. 

You begin to wonder if you should have left a card or a number so that you could talk later. You know, for research purposes. It’s always nice to make a friend outside your field who shares the same interests as you. But none of that matters now anyway because #ACAB. What’s done is done. But you still wonder about what his intentions were when he started that conversation. It’s too bad we can’t talk more. Yeah. A shame.

-> Moral of the story: Be more assertive. Offer a way to connect if you’re interested. Why do we keep reinforcing the idea that women can only be acted on and can’t act themselves?

4. To love or be loved

Like many young adults, I often question if my mother really understands what it means to be in love. She seems to like the idea of love, the idea of the perfect fateful meeting, but proudly says that she never fully gave her heart to anyone. She’s always warning that it’s better to receive love than to give it. That you end up at a disadvantage if you love first and love more. 

But I think I’d rather have the agency to make that choice than to be chosen. All throughout high school and in the media, we seem to glorify having someone choose us and love us unconditionally. But that’s unrealistic. There’s no such thing as unconditional, but I do hope to get as a close as possible to it. I want to love someone even if they might not love me back. I want to know how it feels like to put someone else first. Maybe this is just another teenage fantasy that has re-manifested itself in adulthood, but I want the freedom of stretching my feelings out than to feel the weight of that of someone else’s whom I can’t reciprocate. 

It also has to do with how much the alpha male is romanticized in our culture. I realize that I don’t want a domineering male version of my mother, who herself is controlling, obsessive, and possessive. I want a friend, not someone who thinks that I constantly need to be coddled and protected for my own good. 

It’s also a stupid expectation to have of real life men. If the men in my life are any indication, then they have goals and ambitions that they want to pursue. Everyone does. A relationship is a mutual support system. It’s not about how much as can take from someone. 

5. Choices

Some people say that you can fall in love with a city by falling in love in that city. 

TW: Sketchy interactions in ubers/taxis

I was grabbing coffee with a guy that I just met in a foreign city that I was visiting. It was approaching 9pm and he said that he had work the next morning, so we decided to call it a day. I was heading towards the subway station when he said that he called an uber and could drop me off at my hotel. Obviously, warning bells went off, but I was so worried about disappointing him, even though I knew that I wouldn’t see him again anyway after that evening. I just didn’t know how to say no. I reluctantly got in the car with him and instantly regretted it. He moved closer, but when he saw that I was uncomfortable, he moved away. Thankfully. We had an awkward conversation, and the driver dropped me off at my hotel after 10 minutes. I was lucky. I knew it. But looking back at the encounter now, I do wonder what would have happened if I had reciprocated the interest. I mean, I was definitely was curious at the time, but mostly because I was inexperienced and a little desperate to be completely honest. But, I knew that I didn’t want my first kiss or first whatever to be with a stranger who I knew I would never see again since I was leaving the next day. I knew about the emotional confusion that it would cause. I also wasn’t prepared to go as far as I thought he wanted to go, so I didn’t want to give him any wrong impressions and assumed that it was just easier to not show any interest at all. From time to time I still wonder about him and how he’s doing and whether I’ll ever run into him again if I’m back in the city. 

-> Moral of the story: Learn to say no and to stop worrying about whether you’ll offend someone because you want to keep yourself safe. I should have never gotten into that car, and my friends always remind me of that every time I tell them that story. I also acknowledge that some people might not always have that choice, and we should never victim blame. 

For me in that situation, I had a mix of different emotions. Curiosity, attraction, anxiety. My friend told me that I should have told him what I felt at the time and what my boundaries were instead of shutting off. But at the same time, he should have been vocal to me too and voiced what he was thinking, instead of just moving closer in the closed space of an uber. Sketchy af. 

6. Fate (is a lie)

I like to believe in the idea of fate and soulmates. My mother always tells me how I was the product of fate and so a part of me feels entitled to a little bit of that magic too. 

But I got my wake-up call when I walked into a dive bar one Friday night and could have sworn that I saw my first crush from middle school sitting at a table in the centre of the room with a group of his friends. 

We made eye contact, but it was too dark to know for sure. I walked past the table to the bar and asked for a table for one. I sat in the corner and watched him and his friends, curiously.

No one just walks into a dive bar and suddenly decides that the first person you see when you walk through the door is someone you once knew from middle school. I was almost sure that it was him. Was he? 

I was in a city an hour away from where we went to middle school. What are the odds. Was it fate? Was it a coincidence? After 12 years of having never seen this kid, I run into him in a dive bar I’ve never been to before in a city I only go visit maybe once every 2 months. 

Out of all the kids I went to middle school with, I had to run into my first crush? Seems like a joke. What kind of message was the universe trying to send?

In the end, I finished my sangria, and left. He never took one look back at me. And I walked out knowing that I’d never see him again. What seemed like an impossible coincidence just ended up mounting to nothing. 

That’s when I learned that coincidences are just coincidences. There’s nothing more to them unless you decide to make something out of them. 

Concluding remarks:

Maybe y’all are smarter and more perceptive than I am and already knew about these things when you turned 18. But these are lessons that took me 6 years to learn and then some. And even at 24 and having a couple of serendipitous experiences under my belt, I’m still no closer to being the confident, mature, and level-headed adult that I think I should be. I still feel 18 with the unrealistic expectations and mentality embodied by someone that age. Hell, to be honest I’m not entirely sure I remember when it feels like to be an 18 year old anymore. I just feel like an inadequate 24 year old. I shouldn’t be insulting 18 year olds like this. 

[nothingofnotereally]

Unpacking the Mother of Skeletons

So I was just talking to some friends about this page and those references, and my psychology degree-possessing butt started explaining the wire mommy reference, which led me to researching the other references, and now I’m going to unpack them here for your benefit.

Before I do this, let me be clear that I am not agreeing with Grant Morrison or his portrayal of Talia nor am I agreeing with this use of these cultural, religious and social sciencey references.  Just trying to break down what he’s getting at here. 

Ahem.

So the context is this:  Morrison’s Talia is 1. On a rampage of destruction because Bruce won’t date her and 2. Rejecting Heretic’s desire for her love and approval.  Noteworthy: Heretic is Damian’s clone, so he is her genetic son.

Okay, here we go... in order, except for Kali which is last because boy is that a reference to unpack.

Tiamat: Okay so Tiamat is a goddess, in this case the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of creation, the mother of gods and monsters.  She gives birth to the gods, but her husband realizes they want to depose him, so he wars against their children and their children destroy him, and then Tiamat wages war on their children.  She is ultimately killed but not before creating the dragons who have poison in their veins instead of blood... but anyway I’m pretty sure the point he’s getting at is that her progeny rebels against her and she in turn wages war on them.  This may also link back to the final bits of Batman Inc where Ra’s is set to unleash Damian’s clones - Talia’s unnatural children.  Dragons with poison instead of blood, metaphorically.

Medusa: This is a stupid reference because the actual myth (at least the ones I’ve personally encountered) is that Medusa was r_ped in the temple of Athena.  And Athena decided to act like a Greek God does, blaming the victim and cursing her to become a monster.  Not super relevant except that Morrison has previously referenced this as the story of a beautiful woman who became a monster after her love was rejected - no idea where he got that from, but I think that’s fairly self-explanatory in the context of a Talia who has gone warpath because Bruce won’t date her.

The Wire Mommy: So I’m pretty sure this is a reference to the Harry Harlow rhesus monkey studies in the 1930s.  So basically this was a study conducted in, I believe, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Harlow got some babby rhesus monkeys and removed them from their mothers and placed them in one of two primary environments:

An inanimate substitute mother made of wire holds food and a similar substitute made of terry cloth is without food.

An inanimate substitute mother made of terry cloth holds food and a similar wire mother does not have food.

Okay so the findings of this study were basically that the baby monkeys didn’t like the wire mother.  In the case where the food was with the wire mother, they would go over and eat and then dash it over to the terry cloth mother and cling to that one.  

What I gather from this, especially in the context of the above where Heretic is looking to Talia to love and nurture him, is that she’s saying that, despite having given him life and physically supported him (in other words, having the metaphorical food), she has no warmth or love for him.  She is made of wire and without comfort or softness.

The Red Queen: I’m not superfamiliar with the Alice books beyond Wonderland so I did look this up on Wikipedia as well.  Therein lies this quote from Carroll:

The Red Queen I pictured as a Fury, but of another type; her passion must be cold and calm - she must be formal and strict, yet not unkindly; pedantic to the 10th degree, the concentrated essence of all governesses

So, again, a comparison between Talia and a cold, dispassionate anger/hatred, and a female/maternal figure without warmth.

Mother of Skeletons doesn’t seem to be a specific reference - if you’ve got one, feel free to drop that on me, too, but I couldn’t find anything.  I’m guessing it’s another way of reiterating this point that she is a destructive maternal figure who devours or destroys her unworthy children.

And finally...

Kali: Kali is a major Hindu deity, the wife of Shiva, and one of the more famous Hindu gods.  Please note I am not Hindu, I’m not going to front as some kind of expert and if you know better than me, feel free to correct me.  Anyway, Kali has many aspects, some of which are extraordinarily destructive and some of which are less so.  To find out which one he’s specifically referencing all we need to do is look at the art, though:

Kali’s most common pose in paintings is in her most fearsome guise as the slayer of demons, where she stands or dances with one foot on a collapsed Shiva and holds a severed head. She wears a skirt of severed human arms, a necklace of decapitated heads, and earrings of dead children, and she often has a terrifying expression with a lolling tongue which drips blood. --Ancient History Encyclopedia

So okay looking at Wikipedia because I’m lazy... some relevant references, and you’ll see how the other names she gives for herself back this up:

Rāmprasād comments in many of his other songs that Kāli is indifferent to his wellbeing, causes him to suffer, brings his worldly desires to nothing and his worldly goods to ruin. He also states that she does not behave like a mother should and that she ignores his pleas:

Can mercy be found in the heart of her who was born of the stone? [a reference to Kali as the daughter of Himalaya] Were she not merciless, would she kick the breast of her lord? Men call you merciful, but there is no trace of mercy in you, Mother. You have cut off the heads of the children of others, and these you wear as a garland around your neck. It matters not how much I call you "Mother, Mother." You hear me, but you will not listen.

To be a child of Kāli, Rāmprasād asserts, is to be denied of earthly delights and pleasures. Kāli is said to refrain from giving that which is expected.

So, a mother who, having been born of stone herself, lacks mercy and warmth.  Given Morrison’s take on Talia’s background and her relationship to Ra’s... self-explanatory pretentious reference.  But that’s not all:

Vamakali is usually worshipped by non-householders. The pose shows the conclusion of an episode in which Kali was rampaging out of control after destroying many demons. Shiva, fearing that Kali would not stop until she destroyed the world, could only think of one way to pacify her. He lay down on the battlefield so that she would have to step on him. Seeing her consort under her foot, Kali realized that she had gone too far, and calmed down.

Okay this is super relevant because one thing that people often miss about Morrison’s Talia is that her acts of destruction are ultimately meant to get Bruce’s attention.  She undertakes this villainous rampage because he only pays attention to villains: she doesn’t even think it’s interesting, she mocks her own plans and calls them stupid.  She says she’s doing this because Bruce prefers things black and white and over the top.  

And in the end, she shows up in the Batcave, declares that they’re going to fight to the death, and then has a passionate kissing session with him...

...seriously, everyone remembers the kiss but no one talks about how Bruce is still into it.  

But anyway, so they make out, and she poisons him...

...then declares she’s doing all this as a gift to him, expresses frustration that he doesn’t understand, and demands that he beg her for help.

Here’s my point:  she’s not actually trying to kill him or take the world down.  She’s trying to force Bruce to submit to her, at which point she would feel satisfied and come back back from the edge.  As evidenced by her earlier panels expressing her frustration that he won’t stop or admit defeat.

In fact, a great deal of what she does in Batman Inc. seems to be done to elicit a specific response from Bruce - for example, she has a hit put on Damian, but it’s really just to mess with Bruce’s head, it’s not really meant to result in Damian actually dying.  I would say this comes back to this idea that the opposite of love is apathy not hate - love and hate are both intertwined and Morrison’s Talia both hates and loves him, or rather loves him until she hates him and hates him until she loves him.

This reminds me, one day I should write a thing about how Morrison’s Bruce/Talia story is basically a tragic romance and Talia is the actual love interest of his run... or should I because I don’t really want to be the person who writes longass meta about runs and interpretations that I actually hate.   

Anyway, SIGNING OFF AGAIN, it’s...

Me!

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, June 2019

Welcome to my latest summary of recent news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & ecommerce! This covers articles I came across from May 31 to June 21, although some may be older than that.

(Unfortunately, a few of this edition’s entries were lost somehow, & I could only remember one of the missing, so if you know of an article/post that should be included, please let me know, & the piece will be added here as well as to the next post.)

My busy few months are now mostly over, so I will have more time to get working on this Tumblr, new blog posts & the new forum I want to start; expect more frequent updates starting in July. 

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Shopify is going to run fulfillment centres for its US customers within the next 2 years. “Right now Shopify will offer early access for merchants who ship between 10 and 10,000 items per day, and by the end of the year the company aims to offer two-day shipping to 99 per cent of the United States.” They announced other plans at the same time, including better shop tools. 

If you have your own website, conversion rate optimization is something you should be looking at. Why? Because “[a] simple tweak on a landing page can double or even 10x that page’s conversion rate” which can be much easier to do than doubling your traffic. [Note that this is not a short article; it’s a full guide.]

Matching searcher intent is a crucial part of great rankings. This long article tells you pretty much everything you need to know on making that happen with your content, with real examples for their site. 

Mary Meeker released her annual internet trends report; shorter summary here. “If you're looking to connect with the next generation, you should be maintaining at least some awareness of gaming culture, which is where attention is increasingly shifting.” “Some 51 percent of the world — 3.8 billion people — were internet users last year, up from 49 percent (3.6 billion) in 2017...E-commerce is now 15 percent of retail sales. Its growth has slowed — up 12.4 percent in Q1 compared with a year earlier — but still towers over growth in regular retail, which was just 2 percent in Q1...Customer acquisition costs — the marketing spending necessary to attract each new customer — is going up.

ETSY NEWS

Etsy retired several of its Support/Help email addresses, including support@etsy.com, all without any official announcement. 

You can now link photos to variations - but only with one variation, not both. 

Etsy’s annual report for 2018 is out; I didn’t see much new here, but if you catch something, please leave a comment or send me an email so I can add it to this summary. [They actually mentioned “abilities” in their list of things they accept diverse ranges of, but as usual, they only give any details about gender, race/ethnicity and sexual orientation. Disability is invisible for them.]

A new bunch of US states will have state taxes charged for online sales as of July 1. 

Ryan Scott will be Etsy’s new Chief Marketing Officer as of June 24. 

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

Google broke with tradition & decided to warn SEOs about the core search algorithm update that started rolling out on Monday June 3 and ended on the 8th. There are multiple reports of some UK news companies taking a hard hit while others picked up visibility. It’s still too early for much comprehensive analysis, but here is a summary and another more recent one. 

At the same time, Google also rolled out an update that increases site diversity in search results, often limiting each website to 2 entries in Google’s top pages. Think of it as Google's approach to “clumping”. They insist it is separate from the core algorithm update. Early analysis finds that it didn't change much for most searches. 

Websites sometimes rely too much on Google traffic, which is dangerous whenever they change something (i.e., daily). Here are 5 ways to make your site/pages more resistant to algorithm updates. 

Most decent SEO tools cost some money to get the full value, but here is a list of 55 free tools including keyword research, stats, linking, and technical tools. (Some have paid versions as well, but just ignore what you don’t need.)

SEO sometimes requires stating the obvious; check out this tweet with a graphic from an SEO conference. 

Rand Fishkin did a major review of clicks from Google search, & found that nearly 50% of US google searches result in a click (often questions such as weather, or spelling). Only 45% led to clicks on non-paid links, & non-Google companies. But “for every click on a paid result in Google, there are 11.6 clicks to organic results. SEO is far from dead.” Search Engine Land did a TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) summary here. 

Fishkin also has some good insights on making a profit through SEO. [video and full transcript] I think the point about having a strong profit margin is really important - it is going to get more expensive to sell online as time goes on. Etsy is not the only provider trying to squeeze more pennies out of its customers. (Fishkin’s whole push lately is that you must be a known brand to survive; I am reserving judgement on that for the moment.)

Most blogs haven’t done their SEO correctly, but you can fix that. [video & full transcript]

Hate it when your site/business gets mentioned online, but they don’t link to you? There are ways to get other companies to link to you. 

The latest Google mobile search redesign has folks pitching fits about how ads now look like organic search results. For your own website & other sites where it is possible, make sure you have a favicon that stands out from paid ads. [If you Google “CindyLouWho2″ on mobile, my blue fossil coral avi shows for my website & this Tumblr blog.]

Voice search isn’t taking off like people thought it would, although around 30% of Americans use virtual assistants regularly. 

Is audio SEO going to be a thing? Dr. Pete looks at Google’s decision to post podcasts in search results. 

CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails)

Facebook announced its move into cryptocurrency with Libra, which will launch in 2020. 

Contrary to some reports, it seems that fewer people are using Facebook regularly. While time spent on FB drops, Instagram in particular is seeing more interaction. 

Getting the right image sizes and dimensions is really important for each platform; here is an infographic on all image sizes for Facebook. 

“[T]he right time for you to post on Facebook will be different than the right time for someone else to post on Facebook.” A summary of multiple studies on the topic, with tips on using your Facebook Analytics to narrow this down for your business. 

After banning mass messaging earlier this year, WhatsApp is prohibiting sending newsletters through the app as of December. 

A decent guide on using Twitter for your business. “...tweets with images get 150% more retweets”.

Thinking of running a Twitter chat? Here’s a complete guide, including Hootsuite templates. 

You can get new content ideas from Reddit. “Reddit.com saw 542 million visitors in March 2019 alone.”

Pinterest is expanding its shopping program, now called Pinterest Partners, to provide more shopping opportunities on the site. 

A study of the 500 top-followed Pinterest accounts shows that home decor is most popular among influencer topics. [infographic with text.]

Short video platform TikTok is still showing rapid growth. “Digital wellbeing is more important than it has ever been. Since tech companies started optimising for user engagement, the user is unable to escape the app. You will always feel dissatisfied when you close the app, because the notifications keep on coming and the content never seems to end. To us it seems, TikTok has taken this idea to another level and built the user experience to deliberately create addiction.“

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS)

Using Google Ads for your website? Make sure you avoid these 7 common mistakes. 

Google now allows you to target people who are “regularly in your target locations” - but it doesn’t really define how they calculate that.

Instagram Shopping is most popular with younger people (at least in the UK).

Good tips on improving your Amazon ad effectiveness, especially cost-effectiveness.   

Some tips on Microsoft Audience ads, and how to get the most out of them. It includes some good general tips, like looking at your profit margin. 

Facebook produced an infographic on how to best create FB ads, especially, for mobile. 

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING

Google has purchased analytics company Looker; Etsy uses the platform already. 

The Google Search Console is now giving users 90 days of data for some reports. 

Here’s a new WordPress plugin that tracks clicks on pdfs on your site through Google Analytics. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS

Paypal has developed “a customizable e-commerce platform”. 

Amazon has extended 1-day Prime delivery. Their ability to do that largely depends on how they are taking control of the shipping methods used, moving away from using other big companies. 

Amazon closed Spark, its social media competitor, and it redirects to a page of customer-curated collections. 

Some Goodwill stores are now selling thrift items on online platform OfferUp.

Opinion article: is feature-driven retail preventing people from buying?

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE

Human brains like stories, which is why you should use them in your marketing. “Stories do another thing: They trigger the release of this neurochemical called oxytocin, which is known in some circles as the love drug. About 10 years ago, all we really knew about oxytocin is that it’s released when, say, a mother is with her baby. But what we’ve discovered since then, through the work of neuroscientists like Dr. Paul Zak, is that stories trigger the release of oxytocin in much the same way.” 

Sell luxury goods? The market is changing as younger people make up a larger chunk of the core. Millennials will make up 50% of the market by 2025. The article has some interesting stats on the luxury resale market: “Overall 45% of true-luxury consumers participated in the second-hand luxury market, and more than one-fourth (26%) have bought pre-owned goods”  which is a trend some luxury vintage sellers might want to watch.

Generation Z prefers personalized content & isn’t as worried about privacy as older generations. 

US adults now spend more time on mobile devices than they do watching tv. Much of that time is spent on mobile apps instead of browsers, & audio (podcasts & music streaming, mostly) accounts for a large chunk of time spent. 

US retail sales grew by half a percent in May, less than predicted. 

MISCELLANEOUS 

As the US looks at starting an antitrust case against Google, articles are reminding the government what other countries found, and what they should be looking at now. Businesses big & small have filed complaints. 

The Google Cloud outage on June 2 that took down YouTube, Snapchat and Shopify among other sites points to the need for everyone to have a backup system. [Remember, Etsy is also moving all functions to Google’s cloud.]

Sick of writing product descriptions? Imagine if it was your full-time job, and you didn’t have any hand in making or curating the products.

[personalcoachingcenter]

Research Paper: Accountability in Coaching

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/research-paper-accountability-in-coaching/

Research Paper: Accountability in Coaching

Research Paper By Francesco Restifo (Life Coach, ITALY)

Introduction

Coaching is a supporting profession that deals with change, action, forward movement, transformation, all functional to the client’s goals and desires. It is our common experience as human beings that in today’s society change is a daily part of our lives, and so is the need to change ourselves to adapt to our mutating surroundings. Adaptation is one of the key features of our species, one that has guaranteed our survival until this day.

So is accountability: it is an effective boost factor for change. In this research paper I am going to explore the relationship between the role accountability has played throughout our evolution as a species, and the role and potential it has in coaching.

Accountability

What is accountability in the first place? According to the Cambridge Dictionary:

Accountability is the fact of being responsible for what you do and able to give a satisfactory reason for it or the degree to which this happens.

The meaning of the word is intertwined with responsibility, although with an important differentiating factor. Being accountable means being responsible for someone FOR something. Thus the prominent semantic feature is answering to authority.

As a side note, it is interesting to notice that this concept exists in all cultures. This is true independently from the existence or frequency of the word “accountability”, which does in fact not exist in many languages. Even in English, it is a rather infrequent word compared to “responsibility”. This testifies how deeply wired this behavior is in us as a species: it is something we universally share, despite whether a single culture articulates it precisely or not.

Where does it come from?

During the majority of our history as social beings, we have lived in tribes and villages; these small groups survived also because these small social structures kept people accountable.

The Cambridge Dictionary helps us once more with another definition to understand this:

Responsible altruism is the expectation that a favor given today would be returned in the future.

In other words, giving favors to one another would make it more likely to receive other favors in the future. Also, individuals honoring this principle, returning favors, and contributing to the community gained respect, status, and social recognition. This meant having a better chance of survival and reproduction. The smaller and tightly linked the social group was small, the higher the chances of a good gesture to be reciprocated – thus, those of survival.

In other words, accountability has been functional to our own survival for millennia. For thousands of years, we have willingly been keen on doing something today that may ensure us reciprocal altruism. This pattern has been ingrained into our brains until this day.

Moreover, accountability still has consequences on our response to challenges even today. We all can relate to the fact that accountability triggers automatic mechanisms that produce tangible consequences in our behavior. We think harder about an issue, become more alert, pay more attention, tend to develop more complex strategies, justify our choices more elaborately. This is part of the reason why I believe in the fundamental power of accountability in coaching.

Applications to coaching

Today we live in a much wider, more individualistic society, where this social factor has faded. As our groups and tribes have become huge, we have many more ways to escape the authorities which we should be responsible for, that were once much closer to us. We also have easy shortcuts to compensate for the lack of social recognition that virtuous behaviors generated (at least apparently): for instance, we have the power to choose which parts of our life we want to project to the outside world (eg. through social media).

This fading of accountability structures in society and my experience of it being extremely effective and powerful are the reasons for basing my coaching model around accountability. In the model, I propose to use accountability from the beginning, way before developing an action plan.

I suggest that we, as coaches, work to encourage clients recreating that missing community of accountability peers, as a key factor to successfully pursue whatever change may be pursued.

The two flavors of accountability

Procedural accountability focuses on how a goal was reached and the quality of the individual steps; it is not concerned about the quality of the outcome. In practical terms, individuals are usually asked to justify their strategies and motivate their decisions.

Outcome accountability focuses on the outcome and its quality instead, regardless of the path taken to achieve it. If the result only is what matters, developing healthy strategies for success (eg. collaboration) is not valued. As humans, we are naturally inclined to focus on outcomes, it is an effective cognitive bias: it is the most tangible of the two, the lasting evidence of success or failure, and the basis for judgment of the authority. However, just focusing on outcomes goes into the direction of competition and, in the case of social groups, away from mediation and compromise.

Applications in coaching

It should be stressed that both kinds of accountability have their positive and negative sides. Take sports for instance: it is the realm of competition, where results do matter. Of course, the process is equally important: certain standards are enforced by rules and penalties. If applied in athletes’ training, results are what matters, however, success has to be built long term by an appropriate process (eg. regular training, disciplined diet, etc).

Instead of choosing one or the other, a healthy approach lies in being conscious of the existence and importance of the two kinds of accountability and finding just the right balance between them.

Being aware of our human tendency towards outcomes, coaches should empower and support clients offering them both perspectives of accountability, to ensure a healthy and functional transformation journey. Then, of course, the choice of what accountability structures should target is entirely up to each client.

As an example, process accountability could be set up on the smaller, intermediate goals (eg. session goals, quick wins) to generate gratification and fuel motivation; while process accountability could be aimed at the value of the bigger journey, focusing on recognition of successes and learnings made along the way.

Accountability and consequences

There is another wiring in our brains that is both important for the subject.

Psychologically, we are inclined to condemn “free-riders”, i.e. those who benefit from the altruism of others without reciprocating at the appropriate time.

This is not (only or primarily) linked to an idea of justice or injustice. Holding commitments has been a fundamental contributing factor to the survival and thriving of the entire community. Thus, there were unpleasant consequences for individuals who did not honor their commitments to others, or took advantage of others, to discourage this behavior.

Applications in coaching

An additional consequence of what is described above is that accountability is more effective when not only the consequences of succeeding but also those of failing, are known. It is everyone’s experience that we may be motivated by reaching a pleasant state, or by avoiding a different, unpleasant one.

This is why being aware of (I want to stress being aware of, which is different from being fearful of) the consequences of inaction is equally important as a motivating factor. We may note how different individuals formulate their motivations differently (eg. training to complete a marathon vs. training to avoid quitting before the finish line).

The coach should support the client during this delicate exploration, which as we know will be more effective if done during moments of high energy when the client feels empowered and already motivated.

Accountability and failure

The described mechanism of fearing the consequences of not keeping our social obligation to reciprocate favors is also valid for our failures. In fact, failure is still a difficult thing to accept both as individuals and in society.

“People will accept and embrace accountability if they can take decisions and risks without being blamed for making a mistake. Fail fast is a type of culture that needs to be in place if you want to leverage accountability.”

This tells us two things. First, it proposes a healthier attitude towards the possibility of failing; an attitude of awareness and learning. Second, it tells us that the community around us must also be supportive and compassionate: “fail fast” is a culture, i.e. a collective attitude, not just one person’s one.

Applications in coaching

Clients cannot immediately control or change the culture of the communities they live in, however, they have the power to work on their goals: ultimately, the whole idea of success is relative to the goal that one wants to reach.

The fear of failing makes us naturally shy away from difficult goals. This is why a divide-and-conquer approach is effective in so many fields, including coaching: it allows us to break away from resistance and feel the positive effects of smaller but constant successes along the way. These are the quick wins, all of those session goals which are within reach (SMART goals).

One more definition: Ownership

Another key concept linked to accountability is ownership. The people at the Cambridge Dictionary come to our help once more:

Ownership is the fact of taking responsibility for an idea or problem.

Responsibility is involved here, too. This time we need to use our imagination to further explore this concept.

Let us try to imagine a situation where two or more people are liable for a common activity. This scenario is not that effective in terms of reciprocal altruism. Individuals might start debating about who should be taking credit for eventual success, or blaming each other in case of a loss. It is easily understood that factions and internal conflict do not increase the chances of survival.

Ownership, on the contrary, is way healthier for the group. It avoids wasting energy and indulging in lengthy debates, in favor of transparent distribution of responsibilities which can be traced back, praised in case of a positive outcome, and judged in the opposite case.

One of the ideas behind responsible altruism is that the thriving of the group or tribe grants better chances of survival to each individual. At the same time, an individual contributing to the success of the group is eligible for recognition and praise.

Applications to coaching

In today’s world, the idea of a tribe that is essential to our survival is much more diluted, and although society plays a key role in our wellbeings, luckily our physical survival is not in constant danger anymore.

We have seen how accountability and ownership are interlinked. In coaching, the authority implied by accountability may be external, but not exclusively. It may very well coincide with the person being accountable itself. In fact, as coaches, we do encourage clients to be accountable to themselves to create an effective action plan.

Now, going back to the definition of accountability and comparing it with ownership, we may notice that the latter can be rephrased as follows:

Ownership is taking responsibility for something.

Which can be further reduced to:

Ownership is being responsible TO ourselves FOR something.

In other words, ownership is nothing but being accountable to ourselves. In my coaching model, I explore how ownership can boost the client forward on the path towards reaching the sought goal or change.

References

The dark side of accountability, Carlo Alberto Hung, 2019

Helen Abadzi, Accountability and its educational implications: culture, linguistics, and psychological research, UNESCO, 2017

Original source: https://coachcampus.com/coach-portfolios/research-papers/francesco-restifo-accountability-in-coaching/

[secretgiftsforshaman]

I wrote 2826 entire words before I collapsed last night

I have been seriously struggling this academic quarter. And I seriously struggled last academic quarter. As I did in undergrad, and in high school, junior high, and elementary. But I do not have any learning disabilities. And you have some idea of how smart I am in general, but I’ll share one specific example about just how very academically intelligent I am. On the SAT, I scored 700 in reading, 730 in writing, and 780 in math and I did not study for it. I spent most of the test bored and waiting for the allotted time to run out because I finished nearly every section way early. Early enough that at one point I had enough time to leisurely leave and use the restroom and came back before everyone else had finished. The only reason I did not score a perfect 800 in math because I missed *exactly* one question. I can still remember and visualize exactly which one it was – and only I missed it because it was the second to last one of the last math section and my brain read the word ‘diameter’ and was tired enough that my brain went ‘oh cool, radius’ even though I could have easily solved that problem when I was 11 or 12 (if you haven’t already gone “wow, she’s got some serious perfectionism issues” then now would be a good time for you to do so).

All of this to say: it has never been a question of not being able to understand the content. Very, very rarely in my entire scholastic lifetime have I ever not understood what was being taught to me. It is – and always has been – a matter of not being able to sit down and do the work.

One of the rubs of being so smart (especially when also socially inept – I don’t think I’ve ever had a formal diagnosis, but I would be astonished to learn if I wasn’t somewhere on the autism spectrum) is that your sense of self-worth is all too easily conflated with your intelligence and academic performance, placing massive pressure on yourself to be good at school, ‘cause that’s one of the few things I was reliably good at. 

Most of my school-age bullies, particularly the loudest ones, were just as smart as I was: all enrolled in the same accelerated classes, but they didn’t struggle the way I did, and they definitely saw it, and made sure I knew they did. They could all do their homework and turn things in on time, but I just couldn’t sit down and do even the simplest assignments sometimes – let alone the big projects and reports, not without crippling deadline pressure. My parents and teachers also tended to view the situation as if there was some kind of issue with me, too: that I was lazy/disorganized/not ‘applying myself’/needed discipline and punishment and then I’d be fine – alllll of that unhelpful bullshit.

Nobody thought that I wasn’t smart enough, though. Clearly, I was always great on tests: sit me down and ask me what I know and if there’s a definitive correct answer then odds are good that I knew what it was, so I excelled in math and science, and I took great comfort from knowing what I was doing and working familiar problems over and over. But having to go find sources for research and report on something or answer essay style questions – anything subjective or humanities-ish – was my kryptonite. I couldn’t ever say “this is enough information, this is complete and I’m done now” – once I started searching I’d drown in all of the information available and not be able to pull myself out with just enough to get the job done. I would become paralyzed simply by the thought of needing to sit down and do schoolwork, so I’d avoid it and distract myself with reading or anything else BUT schoolwork. And if I ever fell behind (which ALWAYS happened because that’s what happens when your avoidant coping is your default), then it was like pouring anti-napalm on everything: I’d be even more frozen and unable to function, like cold terrified acid licking through my veins. I have been a student most of my life – 21 and a half years to date – and the entire fucking time I’ve been limping along like this, always hoping at the start of each new term that This Time, somehow, I could Just Do It Already The Way I Should Be Able To, but over and over that optimism has crumbled to ashes in that undying flame of fear, paralysis, self-disgust, and despair.

I am able, now, to identify and name what I have suffered from my entire life, the condition that I was made to carry so much crippling SHAME for, that I learned to hide almost completely from all of my loved ones for over a decade so nobody would see that shame and decide to think less of me.

I have anxiety and complex PTSD. 

Where one ends and the other begins isn’t worth the effort of trying to tease them apart. The DSM-5 is an imperfect tool and no diagnosis is a uniform monolith – anxiety, PTSD, depression, and every other name of every other illness is merely a professional shorthand for “all/most of these symptoms are present.” It makes much more sense to treat my anxiety and PTSD as a single condition. Moreover, I have a strong suspicion that my endocrine disorder, PCOS, was triggered by the chronic stress/elevated cortisol and insulin (because one of the most socially acceptable ways for our nervous systems to regulate and soothe themselves when under stress is with food), and if it isn’t completely just part of the same thing, then it’s LARGELY overlapping with the anxiety/PTSD (I know that my mother and grandmother suffered in a very similar way in school, and I know that the PCOS is tied to inherited/ancestral trauma, so it makes every kind of sense if the anxiety/PTSD that we all have is related as well). 

I have had a generalized anxiety disorder diagnosis on my chart for years, and I’ve known, in my rational brain, that I’ve needed to get it under control to feel better and function in school (and to be honest, with almost all other professional/adulting things too). But thinking about what I need and actually DOING something about it are such utterly different things. It has only been in the past few weeks that I have been able to admit to myself that I need real, professional help to overcome this condition – and to ask for and start receiving that help. There is a big culture in my family, especially us women, about ignoring our own issues and focusing on helping other people first (I know I must have written to you about this before), so this has been a massive step for me. 

For a while I’ve been struggling to stay on top of my classes, and have fallen behind in all four of them, and the feeling of being overwhelmed has only increased exponentially. I’ve wanted, desperately, to go to an emotional ER so many times the past month, so much so that I found myself wanting (and knowing on a deep level that my body needs) some kind of pharmaceutical support to get me through the fucking day and allow me to do some of the massive, teetering pile of backlogged work. Upon hearing about my experiences of paralysis and dysfunction, and scoring very high on the anxiety diagnosis questionnaire she used, my doc, who rarely reaches for her Rx pad off the bat, suggested putting me on Clonidine (non-addictive, originally developed for hypertension) especially after my double-checked at-home blood pressure reading was 154/80 (which is consistent with STAGE 2 HYPERTENSION in an otherwise healthy and young TWENTY-NINE YEAR OLD for fucks sake)(insert emojis denoting ABJECT PANIC here).

I am comforted by the fact that my doctor, who I’ve seen since I was a tweenager, has shifted in the past few years to specialize in treating addiction and substance dependency, so if there’s anybody who I can trust to medicate me without causing a chemical dependence it’s her (thank GODDESS). Dr. M agrees with my perspective that the meds are just a temporary measure to alleviate my symptoms enough to function, and that the true treatment is the therapy work that I’ve been trying to do for myself, but there’s only so much you can do all by your lonesome, no matter how many self-help books you read (and goodness knows I’ve read a TON).

So I also finally started seeing a therapist (!), and just admitting some of this out loud to another person has been so profoundly healing. Our second session was this past Wednesday, and I was able to start opening up and telling her that I think my anxiety traces back to ancestral trauma and how I feel called to use a bottom-up, somatic approach (hence my recent interest in shamanism, ritual, soul retrieval, transpersonal psychology, etc., which she’s totally accepting of; again, THANK GODDESS).

One of the many many many self-help books that I’ve had my nose in is “The Instinct to Heal: Curing Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy” by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD (which I started reading like a day before I finally admitted that I needed to take drugs and do talk therapy *laughing at myself emoji here*). Servan-Schreiber beautifully articulated the relationship between our neocortex: the newly, highly developed, outer portions of the brain where our logic, reason, cognition, and consciousness arise from, and our limbic system: the older, more primitive inner section of our brains that controls our unconscious, autonomic physiological processes (like breathing, digestion, heart rate, etc.), trauma, instinct, intuition, and emotion, and is therefore far more deeply and intensely connected to the body (and bodily held memories) than the neocortex. 

I’ve been running around in my rational, conscious, neocortex mind *thinking* about all of my issues and traumas and everything for ages, and I understand so much about these things on that rational level – but that is miles away from the irrational, unconscious, limbic bodymind where all of those traumas actually ARE and continue to play out over and over as if they’re still happening. This is something that my therapist helped me understand – our neocortex understands that this is a different time and the thing that happened in the past is over and done and we’re safe now, but the limbic system has no sense of time. In our irrational reptile brains, everything still exists the same as it did all those years ago as if it never stopped happening. THIS is where our inner wounded child lives, where a soul fragment likely fled from for safety in the midst of the unendurable whatever-it-was that precipitated the trauma response, and where the empty spot is where it needs to be called back to still resides, open and waiting and longing. 

THIS is why I’ve felt called towards the irrational, mystical, shamanic modes of healing: I’ve done as much as I can with my rational mind, which cannot be used to solve an irrational problem or heal an irrational wound, which is what all trauma is. A couple of weeks ago, when I asked you for your help as a shaman with conducting a soul retrieval, this is the kind of work that I was starting to realize that I need to do. The crazy Thing That I Did that I told you about (and meant to describe for you more at the time but I was exhausted and desperately needed the rest instead) was a small and beautiful spontaneous retrieval of a part of me when I was seven, a part that was thirteen, and a part of me as a young infant that I brought to my own breast in recognition that I was both deserving of my own love, nourishment, and care, and capable of being a loving, heart-centered parent to myself. I felt all of the past, younger versions of me that I’ve already been gathered in concentric circles within me, and all of the older versions of me that I’ve not yet been spiraling around me, and my ancestors and guides and spirits and all of the love and kindness that anyone has ever directed towards me gathered around all of me like a compassionate embrace, and I think that it was that experience that gave me just enough of my soul back, just enough juice and magic that I could start digging my teeth in and taking the steps I needed to take to seek treatment and get my legs back underneath me.

As amazing and beautiful as that experience was, it wasn’t everything that I need in order to heal. I want to do a soul retrieval/healing ritual to unfreeze the part of me (and the part of my mother, grandmother, and other ancestors) that is stuck in that root trauma – where the anxiety, complex PTSD, PCOS - where all of that junk stems from. I don’t yet have much sense at all what that’s gonna look like, but I know that it’s gonna be the biggest damn spell I’ve ever cast, and that I don’t think I can cast it alone. Watch this space.

I do think, though, that preparing for that is the thing to do for now, by accumulating small things on multiple fronts – growing my strength, calling back small parts of me, telling more and more loved ones about my truth, chipping away at the stack of things to do, continuing with meds and therapy, contacting my professors and possibly the department/program admin (with a letter from Dr. M in hand documenting my diagnosis and treatment) to let them know that I need help I’m figuring out how to make up for assignments that I haven’t turned in and make sure that I can continue next quarter and not get kicked out of the program. I’m still carrying a lot of fear of failure/expulsion around this (and anxiety = paralysis = inaction for me, even though I desperately want to fix it) – especially after handling myself so badly in a similar situation at the end of last quarter. When you’ve got a minute, I’d appreciate a pep talk about broaching the subject with them.

All in all, I’m doing well and things are looking up in a way I’ve NEEDED them to start looking up for literal decades. I’ve even been able to start telling my mother about how badly I’ve been doing (she knows I’ve seen my doctor and started therapy and meds) and allowing her to see that pain and struggle after years of hiding it from her out of shame has been scary but such a relief. But Goddess Knows I’ve got A LOT to do still. Just cause I’ve finally struck a match and can navigate a little better doesn’t mean I’m out of the dungeon yet.

I began the meds just yesterday, and I’ve spent the day decompressing (never been a better time for me to have a few days all to myself kitten-sitting for some friends while they go to a tiny, COVID-regulation compliant thanksgiving visit with their family in Portland). Drowsiness is a listed side effect of Clonidine, and I was really worried that my prescribed dose was too high after being soooooo tired yesterday and today after I took the pills, but my increasing suspicion is that I’ve just been so high-strung and hypervigilant (hello super premature hypertension!) that the anti-anxiety/BP-lowering drug just uncovered the chronic e x h a u s t I o n that was already (always) there, rather than them making me drowsy when I wasn’t. So I’ve spent the day eating my friend’s leftovers (she’s an AMAZING cook) and cat napping with the two sweetest little troublemakers you ever did see (I’ll send pics!). 

I think that FINALLY being able to relax like this was what helped me to begin to be receptive and start opening up (and connecting with you!) again. Anxiety = I clam up, my libido nosedives, and my pelvic tightness/vaginal armoring gets painful and rigid – all bad prospects for wild, sexy, blooming Love-Lust-and-Light fun. I was so glad to reconnect with you – and that you reminded me that I need to get this out and I can process it and heal it by sharing it with you – that our Sacred Space is still there for me to use and pour my pain and magic and consciousness out into.

I think that’s all the most important developments. I’m excited to hear all about all of your new developments, processing, perspectives too. 

And now I’m gonna go to bed. One nap today was NOT enough to recover from  goddess-knows-how-long-I’ve-had-this chronic fatigue. I’ll talk to you soon

I love you, Άδης

Your Εκάτε <3

[allenmendezsr]

Coping With Grief

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/coping-with-grief/

Coping With Grief

 Buy Now

    HOW TO keep living in the face of a GREAT LOSS

Coping with Grief – Start Healing Your Grief Today

“I thought I’d never stop crying…”

Seven years ago my grief nearly destroyed my family and drove my friends away. But I found an answer. Here is my story…

Date:17 May 2014

From: Penny Clements

Dear Friend

If you are reading this, just like me, you are hurting, you’re lost and confused about why you react the way you do and why everyone else expects you to do this that or the other or just to “get over it”. Sometimes it makes you feel like you’re going crazy, or that you are not trying hard enough.

I was really lost and whilst I knew that crying was not going to solve anything, to begin with I just couldn’t stop. My name is Penny – let me explain where all those tears came from and how I found a way to get past that, and go on with my life.

Grief was consuming my life. I simply had to do something…

After the death of my mother a few years ago I found myself struggling to deal with my grief, and that of my father. I am an only child, so dealing with everything fell to me. My mother was the one who managed things, did the paperwork, dealt with the bills and all of the daily practical aspects of life. So there I was filled with my own grief at her loss, but expected to deal with the legals, arrange the funeral, deal with arranging support for my father, and try to make sure that all of the mandatory things were done.

It was two days before Christmas when Mum died and that made it emotionally much harder, as well as practically very difficult, with much of the government and commercial world on Christmas leave.

Mentally, I became distanced from everything: I shut down my grief internally and focused on dealing with the practical stuff – just surviving each day. The problem was that every time I let my guard down, the pain, loss and confusion came back with a vengeance. I even started to avoid the places that my mother and I loved to visit so much together

Death, loss and grief are some of the least understood and talked about parts of our existence!

Distantly, I realised that was not a good way to be, and went looking for anything that I could find to help me deal with it, and to let me help my father cope. I realised that what I needed was information about what was happening to me. I wanted to understand why I was acting the way I was. I wanted to be sure I was not going crazy.

I easily found some very basic pieces of information from the government organisations on their requirements but that was mostly dry legal stuff about what forms I need to submit to whom and by when.

The on-line grief and bereavement support forums and bulletin boards were full of people who were just as heartbroken and in need of help as I was, and many who might have had the best intentions but insisted that their way of dealing with life is the only way, and that everyone else has no clue.

I spent a lot of money on grief therapy sessions and spent a lot of time with the local priest – both the therapist and priest were well meaning and helpful people but I quickly I realised that they simply put forward the same information over and over again (and it was their view of things , with no flexibility to deal with how I saw the world), expecting me to just accept it and “get over” my grief.

There was no information available about why I and my father were reacting and acting the way we were, nor about what to do, how to understand and move forward. What little I found was either opinion, very locally focused, or put forward from one perspective only, There was no allowance for different needs, beliefs, backgrounds or cultures.

There just had to be a better way!

I was determined to understand what my father and I were going through so I started to do my own research. I read many books as I could find on grief (and there really were not many) and spoke to other people who were also in the process of coping with grief. As I did that, I came to understand that, at some stage in our lives, we all face the loss of someone, or something, that we care greatly about. I also realised that in almost every case, there is absolutely nothing that we can do to prevent that loss, or change the circumstances in which it occurs. Inevitably, then, we all must deal with the fact that, no matter how devastated we feel by the loss, the world around us will go on as if nothing had changed.

I spent literally years of my time, and many thousands of dollars, researching grief and learning all I could to help myself heal. There was nowhere that gave an in-depth set of information on the subject, in easy to understand terms to help me. I had to read hundreds of articles and books and search out each piece of information individually.

“Coping with Grief” is the book that I wished I had at the time!

Once I had put all the information together, I understood that what I was feeling was normal! This allowed me to regain control of my life and deal with my grief step by step.

I learnt that there is no one “right way” to grieve for those we have lost, and that grief affects us all in different ways. What my father and I were going through was a normal and natural process. I also realised that there was no need to be angry with my father, or myself.

I came to understand that my husband and children and my friends were feeling just as helpless as I was. All of them were trying to help me, but none of them knew how to do it in way that made sense to me.

As time passed I resolved to find, and bring together, that information that I had so desperately needed, to make it available for others. This is why I wrote “Coping with Grief”.

“This book has helped me understand and forgive myself. I have now found the strength to go on…”

Narelle 1, Sydney, Australia.

What I am offering you is the information and the knowledge that will help you understand that grief is a natural reaction to death and loss. Knowledge that will help you understand why you feel angry and helpless, why you have trouble sleeping, and why simple things seem to be so hard to do.

In this book You will find

Real, Practical Information – The things you need to know and understand to help you better cope with grief and loss.

Emotional Processes – learn how your mind deals with, and processes loss.

Social interaction – learn how to maintain your friendships and deal with social groups whilst you are grieving.

How to support loved ones and friends – learn how to support your family and friends without letting your stress and emotional reactions damage your relationships.

Cultural Awareness – understand how persons from different cultures and different religious backgrounds react to, and deal with, loss and grief. Know that each person’s approach is right for them, and their background.

Medical Support – know when to seek medical or professional psychological support, or to encourage your loved ones to do so.

All of this in one easy to read package, which you can just download and use in the privacy of your own home, with no need to expose your very personal grief to a therapist, or even to your family, until you are ready. Without the need to spend long hours searching the libraries or the Internet and trying to separate useful facts from mere opinion. You can benefit from all those years, and thousands of dollars that I spent finding and consolidating this information, today.

Inside “Coping with Grief” You will find all the information with will help you understand and learn

what are the stages of grief;

why you feel and react as you do, and how to cope with that.

how to be kind to yourself as you grieve

ways coping with grief and loss;

what are the emotional impacts of grief;

what are physical impacts of grief;

what to expect and how to react to a family member or friend suffering grief and loss.

why grieving people act the way they do;

how different cultures express and deal with grief;

what are the social and family issues; and

ways of dealing with the practical issues;

“Coping with Grief” provides YOU the information that you need to understand yourself, regain control of your life and choose the best way for you to recover from grief and loss.

“This book has saved my relationship with family – now I understand why they reacted as they did and we have forgiven each other”

David 1

I have spent years, and thousands of dollars, doing the research and putting “Coping with Grief” together. This is a huge eBook of 85 pages, packed with essential information. The benefits that you will gain from reading this book are a great investment in your emotional future – understanding of your reactions (and those of your loved ones) to grief, the ability to cope more easily with your grief, ideas and insights for understanding others reactions, and an awareness of the things you need to do to cope when stressed, and all this at a fraction of the cost of what a therapist session might cost you.

For the information in a book like this you might expect to pay thousands (after all, I did, over a couple of years!) but I am not going to ask for that. I am not even going to ask for the $49.99 or more you might expect to pay for a huge ebook like this on most subjects. Because I want to help others by making sure that no-one has to go through the confusion that I did, I have kept my price as low as I can ( I do have to charge something, to recoup some of what it has cost me to put this together and what it costs to share my story like this).

Now you can get “Coping with Grief” eBook for only $29.99

If you or a loved one are suffering from loss and grief, don’t miss out on this limited time offer – get help today – understand your reactions and start the healing.

Sincerely,

Penny

P.S.

This is an investment in your emotional future.. Do not miss out on this opportunity. Understanding your responses and those of your loved ones is the key to coping with your grief and changing your life for the better. Start your healing today.

1) testimonial provided by a pre-release reviewer

[connorcarter32]

Hauntology and Nostalgia

Provocations:

Consider how these themes are applies to practises and how art remakes are prominent in contemporary art and design.

Emotional investment.

Melancholy for something that has passed and is no longer happening now.

Particular works have a nostalgic quality, usually when they are repeated or if it was observed during childhood.

Clip showed from 'Lala land', it's a rejuvenation of pre modern musical with its colour and historical context.

Nostalgia: homesickness or a sentimental yearning for a past period.

Disney remakes preying on this phenomenon. A good representation of its value.

Repurposing and remix are good examples of adaptation of nostalgia.

The keep calm poster is an example of nostalgia within British culture and how it has been reused for it's original purpose in market crashes.

In psychology we usually amend our memories to make ourselves seem superior.

Nostalgia is very prevalent in political policies.

Svetlana Boym, theorist who wrote 'the future of nostalgia' "nostalgia is a longing for a place, but actually it is a yearning for a different time". I disagree with this statement, as I find the euphoria comes from the place entirely, and it can be recreated with the correct conditions in my own experience.

Hauntology: as much about our relationship with the past. A binding of memories to your present self.

David Lowery's 'A ghost Story' has a good example, focusing on ideas of being and memories.

Personally disagree with 'stranger things' being hauntological and more nostalgic, as the time period is extremely fetishised. It preys on general audiences yearning for the past, that they have some semblance of control over in their mind; perhaps offering comfort, or peace of mind.

Hauntology has a more theoretical angle, rather then deconstructing the past it focuses on the pasts effect on the present.

Jacques Derrida "it incorporates the notion of non-origin in which the present is neither present nor past".

Jonas Mekas - Lithuanian American filmmaker, who believes a merging of the past and present (hauntology) is beneficial in film works, as its unclear where any piece of life goes together. In a sense, there is order in disorder.

Mark Fisher on electronic music believes that the genre no longer sounds like it has a sense of the future. "Anything recorded I the 2000's could have been recorded in the 1990's.

Sounds that once had a sense of the future now have a sense of the past (seen within synth music and such).

Mark Fisher’s Belief that electronic music sounds less of the future now then it once did, is very reminiscent of what we now consider genres such as ‘synth wave’, which focuses on retro themes, much unlike electronic music’s intended purpose. This has inspired the development of my own scores within screencraft, as our aestheticism is one of the 60′s. that coupled with the genre of sci-fi makes synthesised music a perfect reference for creating my own music for the film. At first I began looking at genre’s like ‘dream wave’, since our film has a light-hearted tone, and the euphoric nostalgic tone of the genre would work well. During production I decided not to use this, as a sense of euphoria was already apparent in the visuals and sound design, therefore music of this calibre would be wasted. 

Piece inspired by dream wave, specifically the work of  Kenji Yamamoto in ‘Metroid’

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gPdpLFvNVroa1mB8Uz__pViz3W7ZjqG7

This piece went unused as the film already touches on its nostalgic, euphoric feeling, stemming from the enthralling, yet familiar nature of video game music. Furthermore the dramatic nature of the synth choir and the drastic melodies is out of place in the world of the film (as mentioned from peer feedback). 

Electronic theme:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rsXRmoOFE0rhTBADhz9eLXywtyg5ENY1

The sense of nostalgia in this piece is apparent in its wispy, ethereal tone. Furthermore the simplicity and lack of layers makes it seem more familiar, like most traditional sci-fi soundtracks. I also find that the electronic sounds I produced are also reminiscent of the past, relating back to its nostalgic aura and Mark Fisher’s beliefs. 

This piece we decided to use in the final film, however peer feedback deduced that at times it could seem quite sinister, so some amendments are still required, however I am much more content with the feeling this piece produces, rather than the others. 

Hauntology and Nostalgia Cont-

Concept of future nostalgia: Present in Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’, since you are not; as a viewer nostalgic for the beginning, since it’s quite dowry, instead you are nostalgic for the scenes or the end of the story, shown before the end. 

Term nostalgia coined by Roman soldiers, when they were sent to new lands and found a longing for home. Research has shown it’s not just a yearning for home, but a romanticised past.

British propaganda is not shy on this topic, i.e. Take back control, send them back, all past pronouns. 

Examples of nostalgia and hauntology in film disciplines.

We still shoot on film, which is inherently a nostalgic medium, however in a lot of instances it’s used to idolise a period of the past, since it’s iconographic of the historical context.

Forming an argument for non-nostalgia.  

Film is more a portrayal than a romanticism. Just because it’s being shown dosen’t mean it’s good.

Sometimes used for homage, you may not miss it, but enjoy it. Film more relevant to hauntology.

Film being nostalgic implies anything of the past is nostalgic.

Currently there is a choice of digital too, which is much more accessible, demonstrating a lack of demand for an ode to the past.

Hauntology Cont:

Technological determination: belief in future technology solving modern problems I.E. the common consensus on climate change.

The return of vinyl records, craving the return of imperfections, despite past technologies attempts to remove them.

Animorphic lens, similar to fish eye, makes images pop out, but blurs the edges. "Ultra close up lens". Used in 'John Wick' to capture action at a mid range with a close up effect. (For practical reference).

Hauntology is idealised by ghosts, something that can have an impact from the past. It's more of a practical response then nostalgia, since it discusses how something has influenced someone, not the act itself.

Derrida is a very iconic theorist amongst academics, due to his work on hauntology. Later in life he discusses social issues around christmas, and ethics of animals and consumption. Most known for post-structualism. Looking at a wider sense of social life and challenging its structures. 'Spectres of Marx' is his most accomplished publication, being made after the loss of his friend. One sentence is mentioned about hauntology, but mainly focuses on mourning, especially in 'Hamlet' misquoting "time is out of joint." The period of mourning is what created the ghost, time is our own application, and anything that comes from it is from deep within man.

"Film is a time based media", we can capture a moment in time for whatever need. Ghosts create a problematic issue in the timeline, it portrays the past through the filmmaker, for a medium bein used in the future.

Films including a dead cast or crew, are momentarily revived in that moment of time while watching.

Hauntology is a play on ontology, the study of being (referenced in 'me, myself and I' blog).

Epistemology, related moreso to our knowledge and what is learned. Considering how a child would be sired. That act of consideration and tension.

When co-prescence is removed, a phantom is replaced. Communication is done indirectly, therefore as a ghost.

[surveyjunkie]

1. First of all, what do you prefer to be called? Tasha. 2. What is your favorite form of creative expression?  For me, it’s either blogging or painting. If I had any musical talent, it would be that. 3. How do you like your coffee OR if you don’t like it, why?: I take it with loads of flavored cream.  4. What is the least desirable thing, in your opinion, to put on a pizza that you have heard of people actually eating?: I guess anchovies...fish and pizza just don’t sound appetizing together. I’m also not big on putting chicken on pizza unless it’s chicken bacon ranch.  5. Would you rather witness the beginning or the end of the universe?: The beginning.

6. Describe your favourite pair of socks: They have the sailor moon bow on them. 

7. What is the current or last song you are listening/listened to, and does it have any special significance to you?: I don’t even remember what it was. I can’t find my headphones :(  8. Do you prefer rainbows or stars?: Stars 9. Describe the best day of your life NOT in terms of events, but in terms of your feelings: Elation.  10. Would you rather go to a planetarium or an aquarium?: Aquarium. 11. Do you know the reason that 11:11 is considered to be auspicious?: No idea.  12. What decorations are hanging on your walls?: At home? There’s a couple of paintings I made, a framed Margarita recipe, and my Bachelor’s degree.  13. What is your favourite planet in our solar system?: Earth 14. How do you express love?: More through actions than words because I suck at talking about emotions. << 15. Do you consider yourself to be more spiritual or scientific?: Spiritual I guess.  16. If you had a lava lamp, what color would you want it to be?: Teal 17. Would you rather be able to revisit your past to simply re-experience a positive moment or revisit your past in order to change things and risk the consequences?: Maybe just re-experience a positive moment. I’m weird about the idea of changing things that have happened in the past, even though I have strong regrets. I feel like things wouldn’t be how they are now if I hadn’t had the unique experiences of the past. Idk.  18. Have you ever had a past-life regression or memory?: I remember when I first got braces, I told my mom that the feeling of having them felt familiar, even though I’d never had them before in my life. That’s the only indication I’ve had so far that I may have led a past life.  19. What is your favourite holiday and why?: Christmas. Family and food. << And eggnog/booze 20. Are you better with remembering dates or names?: Dates. I’m terrible with names.  21. What was your favourite book that you had to read for a class?: 1984.  22. What is your favourite number and why is it significant to you?: 7. It signifies my 7th year of life and the 7th grade, which were both great times for me.

23. Would you rather explore space or the ocean?: Space.  24. What prompted you to call the last person you called?: I missed her call so was calling her back. 25. Star Trek or Star Wars?: Wars. 26. Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter?: LOTR. 27. What is your favourite band and why?: I have lots of favourites, because I can’t choose just one. << 28. What colour best resonates with your best friend(s)?: Navy blue or white.  29. Where do you work and why do you work there?: I work in the research office at the local hospital because they offered me a position that is relevant to my bachelor’s degree and will look extremely good on grad school applications.

30. Have you ever gone to a public karaoke facility, and what did you sing?: I’ve been to one, but I didn’t sing 31. What animal do you feel most connected with?: My dog. 32. Have you ever had “special brownies” or any other kind of “special” treat?: Yep, I didn’t care for them. I just prefer to smoke it.  33. What book are you reading at the moment?: None. 34. What is the funniest thing that you have done at a fast food restaurant? Probably when I fell asleep on my food when I was drunk.  35. Do you enjoy listening to music that is sung in another language?:

Yes, especially Spanish 36. Quote the last movie you watched: “Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, Beauty and the Beast” 37. Do you know more than just your sun sign (like your ascending sign or moon sign etc.)?: I’m not sure what that is 38. Do you have any jewelery on you that holds significance, and if so, what is it and why is it significant?: I have a couple of rings my mom bought for me on my birthday. One is a ruby ring which is my birthstone and the other has two small diamonds in it.  39. What is your favorite kind of cheesecake?: Peanut butter fudge 40. Why did you last feel warm and fuzzy inside?: Just cuddling with Josh.

41. What band that no longer performs together do you wish would have a reunion tour?: Pink Floyd.<< Yes. They came to my city back when I was in college and I was hoping my dad would take me, but he never did. I’m still salty as hell about it.  42. What band that IS still together do you wish would perform in your area?: Alt-J 43. Have you ever been in a band, and what role did you play in it?: Nope 44. What has been the single most frightening experience of your life?: I haven’t had anything too terrible. Most of them just involve minor car accidents, my car breaking down in the middle of the highway, or locking myself out of my apartment. They’re stressful scary things but I haven’t had anything that has caused trauma, which I’m thankful for.  45. Who is/was your favourite Spice Girl?: Baby Spice.  46. Do you prefer free verse or poetry set in a form?: It doesn’t matter to me 47. In a hotel, would you choose to go in the hot tub, the sauna, the workout room, or the pool?: The hot tub.  48. Imagine that you are exploring space. Who would you want with you and what would you want to explore, assuming you are not limited in any way?: I would want a bunch of trained astronauts with me. The idea of space freaks me out. <<  49. Have you ever astral projected?: Say what? 50. What is your favourite song by the group t.A.T.u?: Probably “All The Things She Said” because that’s the only other one I know besides “They’re Not Gonna Get Us”. 

51. Describe what you envision as “paradise”: Being on a boat in the middle of a lake with beer, a fishing pole, and good music. I think I may have been a redneck in another life, but I’m okay with that.  52. What element do you feel most connected to?: Water. 53. What is a cause that you feel very strongly about and why?: Keeping Planned Parenthood around. I just think low income women should have the same access to gynecological exams and life-saving procedures that rich women do. Defunding them is not going to stop abortion.  54. What was your favourite class from the last year that you were in school?: I really enjoyed Diversity and Health. I learned a lot about other cultures and how difficult access to healthcare is in other countries. I really think everybody should take that class.  55. What is a topic that you study independently for your own interest?: Politics or psychology, when I’m in the mood.  56. Describe what you would want to wear if you were getting married, handfasted, or having some kind of “love celebration” or “commitment” ceremony between yourself and another? A long white dress, probably lace with belled sleeves.  57. What song do you want played at your funeral?: "Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba.  58. Would you rather alphabetize or put things in order according to numbers?: Alphabetize 59. What medication do you dislike the most?: Antibiotics, they ruin my stomach.  60. Would you rather write a story or a poem?: Story. 61. Do you believe in non-physical entities, and if so have you ever communicated with one?: I don’t know if I do. I mean, I used to pray to God, but I’m not sure if that’s what you’re referring to.  62. What invention or discovery do you think that the scientific community should focus on?: I think they’re already focus on a lot of important priorities, like medical care, disease cure and treatment, etc. << Yeah. I work in medical research and I can tell you that we are extremely well funded. 

63. If you could go anywhere, where would you go and why?: Anywhere? I’d go explore the west coast because I’ve never been there in my 24 years as a U.S. citizen.  64. What skill do people often compliment you on?: I don’t know. I don’t have any skills.<< 65. What are three facets of your personality or thinking patterns that you want to improve?: Social anxiety, self-doubt, hastiness 66. What is your favourite symbol?: $$$ 67. Name an unusual shortcut or file that’s on your desktop: There’s nothing unusual on my desktop, unless you think my Doge background  is unusual, which if you do, FUCK YOU! Lol, just kidding. I don’t know.  68. What do you smell like right now?: Burberry Weekend 69. You get to have a theme party of your choice, just for fun. What theme do you choose?: 80′s! Even though it’s been done fifty billion times. I don’t care. 70. Have you ever been in the depths of a cave?: No 71. How do you deal with the dark side of yourself?: I listen to depressing music or watch fucked up movies.  72. Name something that you can’t help but save: Receipts.  73. What is your addiction?: Fries, pizza, online shopping 74. If you could wish something for three people, but not for yourself, who would the wishes be for and what would they be?: Health, happiness and money for everyone I love. << 75. Would you rather send a message in a bottle or on a balloon?: Balloon.  76. What did you dream last night?: I had a nightmare I was stabbed in the ghetto and ran to a guy in his car for help. I asked him to drive me to the hospital because I was bleeding a lot but he ended up taking me to the grocery store instead and made me wait for him to spend 10 minutes picking out fruit before he finally took me to the hospital.  77. What is one of your most frequent daydreams?: Quitting my job  78. What is your favourite stuffed animal?: My squirtle. 79. If you could have a conversation with any well-known figure of the past or present, who would it be and what would you want to talk about?: I really don’t know.  80. If you could bring anyone back to life, who would it be?: My uncle 81. Are you affectionate?: Yes 82. Name one thing that each of your best friends is really good at: Smoking pot.  83. What are you a perfectionist with?: Certain things at work.  84. Could you see yourself being able to carry on a long distance relationship?: I did it for 6 months. Granted, we were within driving distance, but it was still hard. 85. If you could be anything but human, including anything mythical, what would you be?: A unicorn.  86. Have you ever meditated? If so, what is your method, and if not, what do you do to relax?: I’ve done it a couple of times, it doesn’t really help. Usually breathing exercises and hot tea help.  87. What is something about yourself that you feel no one else understands?: I’m over analytical 

[not-poignant]

pardon this question, you definitely don't have to answer it, but how did you learn or realize you were autistic? I've been researching symptoms and experiences and i know a few people who are on the spectrum, and i've been wondering if i am even though it doesn't present conventionally in some ways? My psychiatrist shut it down v quickly

Hi anon, :)

Okay, I have a long response so I’m putting it under a Read More. The first half is basically my journey to where I’m at now, and the second part is my thoughts on where you’re at, and how self-diagnosis is pretty cool in a world where a lot of the system is against adults getting diagnosed on the spectrum. Feel free to ignore the first part.

It’s a strange journey to how I got here. My folks actually suspected I had autism as a child, but because Asperger’s wasn’t a thing in Western Australia back then (early 80s), I had some borderline traits and then was tossed back without a diagnosis, and that was that.

I had an idea about 8-9 years ago, but never did anything about it, because I was wary of treading into a community I didn’t think I was a part of, and I didn’t want to offend anyone.

Then I had a friend who is also likely Aspie’s, tell me that she thought I very strongly fit the symptom profile of AFAB folks with Asperger’s (people who are women, or assigned female at birth, often have a different autism symptom profile to men, for a lot of reasons, and are often dismissed, because misogyny and a patriarchal medical system). Those symptoms were spot on, but again, I kind of ignored it.

About a year after that, I was having some massive communication troubles, and I ended up with a book on ‘how to communicate with your Aspie partner’ (or something like that, I can find it for you) and it was way more helpful than any book I’ve ever gotten on communicating. Like, way better than my ‘living with a PTSD partner’ better than ‘living with an X chronic condition partner.’ Like, scary accurate. After that, I started self-identifying as neuroatypical. I already knew that it is extremely hard for adults to be diagnosed on the spectrum, especially AFAB folk. It’s one area of self-diagnosis where I was like ‘the material is helping me and my life improve, therefore, I’m going to self-diagnose as having this thing.’*

(*I actually think this is one of the best reasons to self-diagnose, which is if the materials improve your quality of life once you engage with them.)

Some time after that, maybe two years ago now, my current psychologist didn’t do an official screening, but said I met all the core markers for high functioning autism, and had been treating me as a client that was neuroatypical for some time (with some success) even though she hadn’t told me that (she just assumed I knew I was on the spectrum) and we started talking about it.

I’ve never had an official screening, beyond what I had as a 3 to 4 year old. Recently - last year - my Mum found out in a weird weird way. A friend of hers met me twice, her son’s autistic (he’s low functioning) and said to my Mum: ‘I think your daughter has Asperger’s.’ Mum was like ‘haha no, she doesn’t.’ And then apparently this friend showed Mum sites on autism and Mum came to me and was like ‘ahhhhhhh I don’t want to offend you buuuuuut this seems, a lot like - this explains a lot.’ And I was like ‘oh yeah, totally, I’m totally with you, your friend is right.’ And Mum was like: ‘O.O’ and that’s the story of how we get along a bit better now and how she understands me a bit more, lol.

*

But here’s the thing about getting diagnosed as an adult, particularly if you’re AFAB (I don’t know if you are, but anyway) - it’s really hard, and it’s often really expensive. Currently, in Western Australia, a place known for having very high standards of public health access, it costs $1300 for most to get the official screening done, and most doctors / psychologists don’t offer it, and it’s not covered by almost all forms of insurance, nor is it covered by disability/health welfare. A lot of adults literally don’t have the privilege to afford diagnosis - it’s things like this which make me a big proponent of self-diagnosis, especially in cases where I know the western medical system is really bad at supporting adults with whatever thing the thing is. (ADHD is another, it’s really tough for adults to get diagnosed with this, and get appropriate treatment, especially based on country - it’s possible in Australia, it’s basically impossible in Italy because of cultural biases). 

I don’t want to say your psychiatrist is wrong, I don’t know your situation, or your history with them, I’m not a professional of anything remotely medical or psychological. At all. Plus I feel it would be remiss of me if I didn’t say that there is a huge overlap between some high functioning autism symptoms and mental illness symptoms, and a psychiatrist is in the best possible position to know the difference.

I will say it’s worth looking around on Facebook for groups that might look at adult folks with Aspie’s or similar, and ask them what doctors or psychs they saw for diagnosis. We have to do similar here in Western Australia for Fibromyalgia, because even though typically you go to a rheumatologist (at least here) to get diagnosed, a lot of rheumatologists here refuse to even acknowledge/touch Fibromyalgia (it’s notoriously difficult to treat) - so I wasn’t diagnosed for 10+ years, despite actively hunting down a diagnosis for what I had (and I’d even ruled out Fibromyalgia for myself, because I’d been conditioned to accept my chronic, intense pain as ‘normal’ and ‘untreatable’).

Now I have a rheumatologist that diagnosed me, and I have a medication that helps me. That’s a miracle. And I got a referral to this rheumatologist thanks to a Facebook group / friend that were on the ball with this stuff. So I think it would be good to search around online. I actually hate Facebook, but god, it can be really good for putting you in touch with the right doctors, or the patients who see the right doctors/psychs/psychiatrists/counsellors etc. Like I said, I don’t know if your psych is right for you or not, but this is a world where second opinions count, and not all doctors are supportive of every thing. If I’d known I had Fibromyalgia 10-15 years ago, I could have been placed on Amitriptyline early and I may not have ended up on Disability via destroying my life via ignoring illnesses until my body literally couldn’t take it anymore.

My thoughts are…you’re looking for something that helps you, right? That’s why we need labels sometimes. Sometimes the medical profession won’t help us out with that, but that doesn’t stop you from accessing those books, articles, how-tos and so on in the meantime. There are a lot of people, regardless of age, who self-diagnose as neuroatypical in part because the social anxiety of getting diagnosed (a facet of being neuroatypical, among many other things) is just too damn intimidating. You can start looking up ‘how to communicate in relationships if you’re X’ now. You can really start testing all of that stuff out now. If it helps you, if it improves your quality of life (that’s the biggie), that’s like…the most important part imho.

Also, finally if you’re AFAB or a cis female, and haven’t already, google the presentation of Asperger’s in women. You may find the symptom profile fits you better than what you’ll find on the standardised Wiki page. Finally, even if you don’t have Asperger’s, that doesn’t mean you can’t be neuroatypical, or don’t have neuroatypical traits? I’ve had synesthesia all my life, that alone makes me neuroatypical. So it’s worth… remembering that no matter what the final label is that you end up with for yourself, in the meantime, it’s okay to validate those parts of you that don’t seem to fit into the norm of neurological behaviour. It’s okay to seek help and support for it, and it’s okay to give yourself permission to look further.

I wish the path to diagnosis was easier, no matter what the diagnosis ends up being. I have lived what it’s like in a medical system where doctors miss things or ignore things because it’s more convenient for them to do so. It sucks. Trust me, there are a lot of self-diagnosed people on the spectrum, who are right to have self-diagnosed. You’re not alone (I bet there will be other people reading this who can relate to you, anon), and I think it’s awesome that you’re reaching out / putting out feelers about this stuff. *offers hugs*

[poop4u]

It’s Not Where Pups are Raised, It’s How

#Poop4U

A recent study in Applied Animal Behaviour Science found that pups raised in the home were more confident and less likely to exhibit fear-related aggression than pups raised in kennels. No surprise there to any of us, given all we know about the importance of social interaction and a varied environment in the healthy development of canine cognition, physiology and behavior. Indeed, a study done in 2013, led by McMillan and co-authored by Serpell and Duffy, found that pet store puppies have more behavioral problems than those raised by private breeds, as did a 2011 study on puppies from commercial breeding facilities. (FYI, see Frank McMillan’s new edition of his book, Mental Health and Well-Being in Animals, a truly excellent and important work.)

Zazie Todd, PhD, who wrote about this latest study in her kick ass blog, Companion Animal Psychology, concluded: “So if you are getting a puppy from a breeder, it’s a good idea to check that the puppy is being raised in the house, and not outside in a garage or barn.”

I know exactly where she is coming from, except . . . I don’t think where is the heart of the issue. I say that, full disclosure, as someone who many years ago raised a few litters of Border Collie puppies first in the house (one to 21 days) and then the barn (22 days until they left for new homes.) Once the pups were moved to the barn, in a converted milk house, they got both hours of social interaction from me, friends and my other dogs, and a profoundly varied environment in which to discover the world.

At least five times a day a pile of puppies tumbled out of the door and went exploring with me, their mom and the other dogs of the farm (Border Collies and Bo Peep, my first Great Pyrenees). They walked through short grass and high grass, dry grass and wet, cold grass. They stumbled over sticks and small logs, some charging forward with abandon, while others fussed and whined behind the obstacle while their litter mates moved ahead. They met butterflies and ant hills and smelled sheep poop and the tracks of foxes and chipmunks and squirrels. The heard bird song, traffic, dogs barking, people laughing, and music. I could go on, but you get the idea.

I thought of this while watching Jane Killion’s wonderful video, Puppy Culture. In it she explains the importance of social interaction, mild levels of stress and a varied sensory environment during the first twelve weeks of a puppy’s life. As I wrote in my review of the DVD (now also available for streaming), you gotta love a women who names one of her bull terrier puppies “Betty Pork and Beans”. As I watched the video, I thought back to watching my puppies struggle through grass over their heads, listening to gun shots from neighbors, and dancing after butterflies. No need for me to have created an elaborate system in my rec room for the puppies to experience mild stress, sensory variety and social interaction.

And so I want to add my voice to the work being done that emphasizes the importance of the environment during early development, and clarify what I think is important–not where, but how.

Speaking of how, I wish there was more research on the effect of litter size on early development. I’m thinking of it now because good friends just helped Kip, a lovely Basenji, whelp a singleton puppy. They were well aware of the concerns about singleton puppies, who miss out on so much of the normal stimulation provided by squirming, squealing litter mates. Years ago my own dog, Pippy Tay, had her own singleton pup, and I was worried sick he’d grow up to have the behavioral problems it seemed I had seen in singletons.

                Kip and her litter of one, Hope Solo.

I used puppy-sized stuffed animals to surround and push against him during the day, and gently forced him off the nipple every other feeding time so that he’d encounter mild stress and frustration. (The most common concerns about singleton puppies are frustration intolerance, touch hyper-sensitivity and difficulties with other dogs.) I counter conditioned him to surprise touches with chicken because he began growling around five weeks of age when touched. The growling disappeared after three weeks of conditioning and he went on to be a sweet, lovely and friendly pet puppy for a single woman who loved him liked life itself. She reported that he wasn’t always great at meeting new dogs (even though he’d been around 5 other dogs here), but he was a wonderful, happy dog, and she adored him.

Pippy Tay and a “normal sized” litter of five. The next time she whelped she had a singleton. Sorry for the fuzzy photo, I had to dig deep in boxes of old prints to find this.

But what do we really know about singleton puppies and behavior? Where’s the research? I could find none, althogh there are some good articles about singletons based on personal experience. Here’s a good one from Susan Garrett, with important points about feeding restrictions, frustration and touch tolerance. Although we have no research on the topic (that I know of–anyone?), it seems to me that the number of litter mates could/would have a profound effect on a dog’s eventual behavior. And not just a singleton versus “more”. What about a litter of two puppies? How is that different from 12? Surely 11 littermates creates a substantially different environment and set of stressors than only one or two. Given the lack of research (PhD anyone?), all we have now are anecdotes based on our own experiences. I’d love to hear yours, I’m all ears.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: The market lambs “went to market today”. (Actually the deed was done here at the farm; which avoids the stress on the lambs of being driven in a truck to somewhere unfamiliar.) It’s an especially bittersweet time because we aren’t planning on any more lambs. We have saved three lovely ewe lambs however, all of which are going to need names. They are all white hair sheep of a similar size, so keeping track of who’s who is going to be tricky. Already we have Spot and Taylor Swift who look a lot alike and can only be distinguished by a black spot on Spot’s knee–not very easy to see most of the time.

Here are the new girls. Pretty adorable, hey? The two on the right are the lambs of Taylor Swift, the one on the left is from Snow White. Any and all ideas for new names are welcome. (I didn’t come up with the names for Meryl Sheep OR Lady Baa Baa. This might be the best feature of social media ever.)

That’s Taylor Swift and one of her lambs on the right. Brown and white Lady Baa Baa is in the middle. She’s become quite the porker. Beyonce is on the left, a daughter of Lady Godiva and without question the ewe I think is the most beautiful.

  Maggie is bringing the sheep down from the “moors” to the barn. That’s Lady Godiva in front. She’s doing very well after her medications for pneumonia, but writing this reminded me she needs her second shot today. Just another reason to be grateful for this blog!

Poop4U Blog via www.Poop4U.com Trisha, Khareem Sudlow

[personalcoachingcenter]

Research Paper: Accountability in Coaching

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/research-paper-accountability-in-coaching/

Research Paper: Accountability in Coaching

Research Paper By Francesco Restifo (Life Coach, ITALY)

Introduction

Coaching is a supporting profession that deals with change, action, forward movement, transformation, all functional to the client’s goals and desires. It is our common experience as human beings that in today’s society change is a daily part of our lives, and so is the need to change ourselves to adapt to our mutating surroundings. Adaptation is one of the key features of our species, one that has guaranteed our survival until this day.

So is accountability: it is an effective boost factor for change. In this research paper I am going to explore the relationship between the role accountability has played throughout our evolution as a species, and the role and potential it has in coaching.

Accountability

What is accountability in the first place? According to the Cambridge Dictionary:

Accountability is the fact of being responsible for what you do and able to give a satisfactory reason for it or the degree to which this happens.

The meaning of the word is intertwined with responsibility, although with an important differentiating factor. Being accountable means being responsible for someone FOR something. Thus the prominent semantic feature is answering to authority.

As a side note, it is interesting to notice that this concept exists in all cultures. This is true independently from the existence or frequency of the word “accountability”, which does in fact not exist in many languages. Even in English, it is a rather infrequent word compared to “responsibility”. This testifies how deeply wired this behavior is in us as a species: it is something we universally share, despite whether a single culture articulates it precisely or not.

Where does it come from?

During the majority of our history as social beings, we have lived in tribes and villages; these small groups survived also because these small social structures kept people accountable.

The Cambridge Dictionary helps us once more with another definition to understand this:

Responsible altruism is the expectation that a favor given today would be returned in the future.

In other words, giving favors to one another would make it more likely to receive other favors in the future. Also, individuals honoring this principle, returning favors, and contributing to the community gained respect, status, and social recognition. This meant having a better chance of survival and reproduction. The smaller and tightly linked the social group was small, the higher the chances of a good gesture to be reciprocated – thus, those of survival.

In other words, accountability has been functional to our own survival for millennia. For thousands of years, we have willingly been keen on doing something today that may ensure us reciprocal altruism. This pattern has been ingrained into our brains until this day.

Moreover, accountability still has consequences on our response to challenges even today. We all can relate to the fact that accountability triggers automatic mechanisms that produce tangible consequences in our behavior. We think harder about an issue, become more alert, pay more attention, tend to develop more complex strategies, justify our choices more elaborately. This is part of the reason why I believe in the fundamental power of accountability in coaching.

Applications to coaching

Today we live in a much wider, more individualistic society, where this social factor has faded. As our groups and tribes have become huge, we have many more ways to escape the authorities which we should be responsible for, that were once much closer to us. We also have easy shortcuts to compensate for the lack of social recognition that virtuous behaviors generated (at least apparently): for instance, we have the power to choose which parts of our life we want to project to the outside world (eg. through social media).

This fading of accountability structures in society and my experience of it being extremely effective and powerful are the reasons for basing my coaching model around accountability. In the model, I propose to use accountability from the beginning, way before developing an action plan.

I suggest that we, as coaches, work to encourage clients recreating that missing community of accountability peers, as a key factor to successfully pursue whatever change may be pursued.

The two flavors of accountability

Procedural accountability focuses on how a goal was reached and the quality of the individual steps; it is not concerned about the quality of the outcome. In practical terms, individuals are usually asked to justify their strategies and motivate their decisions.

Outcome accountability focuses on the outcome and its quality instead, regardless of the path taken to achieve it. If the result only is what matters, developing healthy strategies for success (eg. collaboration) is not valued. As humans, we are naturally inclined to focus on outcomes, it is an effective cognitive bias: it is the most tangible of the two, the lasting evidence of success or failure, and the basis for judgment of the authority. However, just focusing on outcomes goes into the direction of competition and, in the case of social groups, away from mediation and compromise.

Applications in coaching

It should be stressed that both kinds of accountability have their positive and negative sides. Take sports for instance: it is the realm of competition, where results do matter. Of course, the process is equally important: certain standards are enforced by rules and penalties. If applied in athletes’ training, results are what matters, however, success has to be built long term by an appropriate process (eg. regular training, disciplined diet, etc).

Instead of choosing one or the other, a healthy approach lies in being conscious of the existence and importance of the two kinds of accountability and finding just the right balance between them.

Being aware of our human tendency towards outcomes, coaches should empower and support clients offering them both perspectives of accountability, to ensure a healthy and functional transformation journey. Then, of course, the choice of what accountability structures should target is entirely up to each client.

As an example, process accountability could be set up on the smaller, intermediate goals (eg. session goals, quick wins) to generate gratification and fuel motivation; while process accountability could be aimed at the value of the bigger journey, focusing on recognition of successes and learnings made along the way.

Accountability and consequences

There is another wiring in our brains that is both important for the subject.

Psychologically, we are inclined to condemn “free-riders”, i.e. those who benefit from the altruism of others without reciprocating at the appropriate time.

This is not (only or primarily) linked to an idea of justice or injustice. Holding commitments has been a fundamental contributing factor to the survival and thriving of the entire community. Thus, there were unpleasant consequences for individuals who did not honor their commitments to others, or took advantage of others, to discourage this behavior.

Applications in coaching

An additional consequence of what is described above is that accountability is more effective when not only the consequences of succeeding but also those of failing, are known. It is everyone’s experience that we may be motivated by reaching a pleasant state, or by avoiding a different, unpleasant one.

This is why being aware of (I want to stress being aware of, which is different from being fearful of) the consequences of inaction is equally important as a motivating factor. We may note how different individuals formulate their motivations differently (eg. training to complete a marathon vs. training to avoid quitting before the finish line).

The coach should support the client during this delicate exploration, which as we know will be more effective if done during moments of high energy when the client feels empowered and already motivated.

Accountability and failure

The described mechanism of fearing the consequences of not keeping our social obligation to reciprocate favors is also valid for our failures. In fact, failure is still a difficult thing to accept both as individuals and in society.

“People will accept and embrace accountability if they can take decisions and risks without being blamed for making a mistake. Fail fast is a type of culture that needs to be in place if you want to leverage accountability.”

This tells us two things. First, it proposes a healthier attitude towards the possibility of failing; an attitude of awareness and learning. Second, it tells us that the community around us must also be supportive and compassionate: “fail fast” is a culture, i.e. a collective attitude, not just one person’s one.

Applications in coaching

Clients cannot immediately control or change the culture of the communities they live in, however, they have the power to work on their goals: ultimately, the whole idea of success is relative to the goal that one wants to reach.

The fear of failing makes us naturally shy away from difficult goals. This is why a divide-and-conquer approach is effective in so many fields, including coaching: it allows us to break away from resistance and feel the positive effects of smaller but constant successes along the way. These are the quick wins, all of those session goals which are within reach (SMART goals).

One more definition: Ownership

Another key concept linked to accountability is ownership. The people at the Cambridge Dictionary come to our help once more:

Ownership is the fact of taking responsibility for an idea or problem.

Responsibility is involved here, too. This time we need to use our imagination to further explore this concept.

Let us try to imagine a situation where two or more people are liable for a common activity. This scenario is not that effective in terms of reciprocal altruism. Individuals might start debating about who should be taking credit for eventual success, or blaming each other in case of a loss. It is easily understood that factions and internal conflict do not increase the chances of survival.

Ownership, on the contrary, is way healthier for the group. It avoids wasting energy and indulging in lengthy debates, in favor of transparent distribution of responsibilities which can be traced back, praised in case of a positive outcome, and judged in the opposite case.

One of the ideas behind responsible altruism is that the thriving of the group or tribe grants better chances of survival to each individual. At the same time, an individual contributing to the success of the group is eligible for recognition and praise.

Applications to coaching

In today’s world, the idea of a tribe that is essential to our survival is much more diluted, and although society plays a key role in our wellbeings, luckily our physical survival is not in constant danger anymore.

We have seen how accountability and ownership are interlinked. In coaching, the authority implied by accountability may be external, but not exclusively. It may very well coincide with the person being accountable itself. In fact, as coaches, we do encourage clients to be accountable to themselves to create an effective action plan.

Now, going back to the definition of accountability and comparing it with ownership, we may notice that the latter can be rephrased as follows:

Ownership is taking responsibility for something.

Which can be further reduced to:

Ownership is being responsible TO ourselves FOR something.

In other words, ownership is nothing but being accountable to ourselves. In my coaching model, I explore how ownership can boost the client forward on the path towards reaching the sought goal or change.

References

The dark side of accountability, Carlo Alberto Hung, 2019

Helen Abadzi, Accountability and its educational implications: culture, linguistics, and psychological research, UNESCO, 2017

Original source: https://coachcampus.com/coach-portfolios/research-papers/francesco-restifo-accountability-in-coaching/

[perfectwayfx]

Coping With Grief

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/perfectwayfx/coping-with-grief/

Coping With Grief

 Buy Now    

HOW TO keep living in the face of a GREAT LOSS

Coping with Grief – Start Healing Your Grief Today

“I thought I’d never stop crying…”

Seven years ago my grief nearly destroyed my family and drove my friends away. But I found an answer. Here is my story…

Date:17 May 2014

From: Penny Clements

Dear Friend

If you are reading this, just like me, you are hurting, you’re lost and confused about why you react the way you do and why everyone else expects you to do this that or the other or just to “get over it”. Sometimes it makes you feel like you’re going crazy, or that you are not trying hard enough.

I was really lost and whilst I knew that crying was not going to solve anything, to begin with I just couldn’t stop. My name is Penny – let me explain where all those tears came from and how I found a way to get past that, and go on with my life.

Grief was consuming my life. I simply had to do something…

After the death of my mother a few years ago I found myself struggling to deal with my grief, and that of my father. I am an only child, so dealing with everything fell to me. My mother was the one who managed things, did the paperwork, dealt with the bills and all of the daily practical aspects of life. So there I was filled with my own grief at her loss, but expected to deal with the legals, arrange the funeral, deal with arranging support for my father, and try to make sure that all of the mandatory things were done.

It was two days before Christmas when Mum died and that made it emotionally much harder, as well as practically very difficult, with much of the government and commercial world on Christmas leave.

Mentally, I became distanced from everything: I shut down my grief internally and focused on dealing with the practical stuff – just surviving each day. The problem was that every time I let my guard down, the pain, loss and confusion came back with a vengeance. I even started to avoid the places that my mother and I loved to visit so much together

Death, loss and grief are some of the least understood and talked about parts of our existence!

Distantly, I realised that was not a good way to be, and went looking for anything that I could find to help me deal with it, and to let me help my father cope. I realised that what I needed was information about what was happening to me. I wanted to understand why I was acting the way I was. I wanted to be sure I was not going crazy.

I easily found some very basic pieces of information from the government organisations on their requirements but that was mostly dry legal stuff about what forms I need to submit to whom and by when.

The on-line grief and bereavement support forums and bulletin boards were full of people who were just as heartbroken and in need of help as I was, and many who might have had the best intentions but insisted that their way of dealing with life is the only way, and that everyone else has no clue.

I spent a lot of money on grief therapy sessions and spent a lot of time with the local priest – both the therapist and priest were well meaning and helpful people but I quickly I realised that they simply put forward the same information over and over again (and it was their view of things , with no flexibility to deal with how I saw the world), expecting me to just accept it and “get over” my grief.

There was no information available about why I and my father were reacting and acting the way we were, nor about what to do, how to understand and move forward. What little I found was either opinion, very locally focused, or put forward from one perspective only, There was no allowance for different needs, beliefs, backgrounds or cultures.

There just had to be a better way!

I was determined to understand what my father and I were going through so I started to do my own research. I read many books as I could find on grief (and there really were not many) and spoke to other people who were also in the process of coping with grief. As I did that, I came to understand that, at some stage in our lives, we all face the loss of someone, or something, that we care greatly about. I also realised that in almost every case, there is absolutely nothing that we can do to prevent that loss, or change the circumstances in which it occurs. Inevitably, then, we all must deal with the fact that, no matter how devastated we feel by the loss, the world around us will go on as if nothing had changed.

I spent literally years of my time, and many thousands of dollars, researching grief and learning all I could to help myself heal. There was nowhere that gave an in-depth set of information on the subject, in easy to understand terms to help me. I had to read hundreds of articles and books and search out each piece of information individually.

“Coping with Grief” is the book that I wished I had at the time!

Once I had put all the information together, I understood that what I was feeling was normal! This allowed me to regain control of my life and deal with my grief step by step.

I learnt that there is no one “right way” to grieve for those we have lost, and that grief affects us all in different ways. What my father and I were going through was a normal and natural process. I also realised that there was no need to be angry with my father, or myself.

I came to understand that my husband and children and my friends were feeling just as helpless as I was. All of them were trying to help me, but none of them knew how to do it in way that made sense to me.

As time passed I resolved to find, and bring together, that information that I had so desperately needed, to make it available for others. This is why I wrote “Coping with Grief”.

“This book has helped me understand and forgive myself. I have now found the strength to go on…”

Narelle 1, Sydney, Australia.

What I am offering you is the information and the knowledge that will help you understand that grief is a natural reaction to death and loss. Knowledge that will help you understand why you feel angry and helpless, why you have trouble sleeping, and why simple things seem to be so hard to do.

In this book You will find

Real, Practical Information – The things you need to know and understand to help you better cope with grief and loss.

Emotional Processes – learn how your mind deals with, and processes loss.

Social interaction – learn how to maintain your friendships and deal with social groups whilst you are grieving.

How to support loved ones and friends – learn how to support your family and friends without letting your stress and emotional reactions damage your relationships.

Cultural Awareness – understand how persons from different cultures and different religious backgrounds react to, and deal with, loss and grief. Know that each person’s approach is right for them, and their background.

Medical Support – know when to seek medical or professional psychological support, or to encourage your loved ones to do so.

All of this in one easy to read package, which you can just download and use in the privacy of your own home, with no need to expose your very personal grief to a therapist, or even to your family, until you are ready. Without the need to spend long hours searching the libraries or the Internet and trying to separate useful facts from mere opinion. You can benefit from all those years, and thousands of dollars that I spent finding and consolidating this information, today.

Inside “Coping with Grief” You will find all the information with will help you understand and learn

what are the stages of grief;

why you feel and react as you do, and how to cope with that.

how to be kind to yourself as you grieve

ways coping with grief and loss;

what are the emotional impacts of grief;

what are physical impacts of grief;

what to expect and how to react to a family member or friend suffering grief and loss.

why grieving people act the way they do;

how different cultures express and deal with grief;

what are the social and family issues; and

ways of dealing with the practical issues;

“Coping with Grief” provides YOU the information that you need to understand yourself, regain control of your life and choose the best way for you to recover from grief and loss.

“This book has saved my relationship with family – now I understand why they reacted as they did and we have forgiven each other”

David 1

I have spent years, and thousands of dollars, doing the research and putting “Coping with Grief” together. This is a huge eBook of 85 pages, packed with essential information. The benefits that you will gain from reading this book are a great investment in your emotional future – understanding of your reactions (and those of your loved ones) to grief, the ability to cope more easily with your grief, ideas and insights for understanding others reactions, and an awareness of the things you need to do to cope when stressed, and all this at a fraction of the cost of what a therapist session might cost you.

For the information in a book like this you might expect to pay thousands (after all, I did, over a couple of years!) but I am not going to ask for that. I am not even going to ask for the $49.99 or more you might expect to pay for a huge ebook like this on most subjects. Because I want to help others by making sure that no-one has to go through the confusion that I did, I have kept my price as low as I can ( I do have to charge something, to recoup some of what it has cost me to put this together and what it costs to share my story like this).

Now you can get “Coping with Grief” eBook for only $29.99

If you or a loved one are suffering from loss and grief, don’t miss out on this limited time offer – get help today – understand your reactions and start the healing.

Sincerely,

Penny

P.S.

This is an investment in your emotional future.. Do not miss out on this opportunity. Understanding your responses and those of your loved ones is the key to coping with your grief and changing your life for the better. Start your healing today.

1) testimonial provided by a pre-release reviewer

[allenmendezsr]

Coping With Grief

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/coping-with-grief/

Coping With Grief

 Buy Now

    HOW TO keep living in the face of a GREAT LOSS

Coping with Grief – Start Healing Your Grief Today

“I thought I’d never stop crying…”

Seven years ago my grief nearly destroyed my family and drove my friends away. But I found an answer. Here is my story…

Date:17 May 2014

From: Penny Clements

Dear Friend

If you are reading this, just like me, you are hurting, you’re lost and confused about why you react the way you do and why everyone else expects you to do this that or the other or just to “get over it”. Sometimes it makes you feel like you’re going crazy, or that you are not trying hard enough.

I was really lost and whilst I knew that crying was not going to solve anything, to begin with I just couldn’t stop. My name is Penny – let me explain where all those tears came from and how I found a way to get past that, and go on with my life.

Grief was consuming my life. I simply had to do something…

After the death of my mother a few years ago I found myself struggling to deal with my grief, and that of my father. I am an only child, so dealing with everything fell to me. My mother was the one who managed things, did the paperwork, dealt with the bills and all of the daily practical aspects of life. So there I was filled with my own grief at her loss, but expected to deal with the legals, arrange the funeral, deal with arranging support for my father, and try to make sure that all of the mandatory things were done.

It was two days before Christmas when Mum died and that made it emotionally much harder, as well as practically very difficult, with much of the government and commercial world on Christmas leave.

Mentally, I became distanced from everything: I shut down my grief internally and focused on dealing with the practical stuff – just surviving each day. The problem was that every time I let my guard down, the pain, loss and confusion came back with a vengeance. I even started to avoid the places that my mother and I loved to visit so much together

Death, loss and grief are some of the least understood and talked about parts of our existence!

Distantly, I realised that was not a good way to be, and went looking for anything that I could find to help me deal with it, and to let me help my father cope. I realised that what I needed was information about what was happening to me. I wanted to understand why I was acting the way I was. I wanted to be sure I was not going crazy.

I easily found some very basic pieces of information from the government organisations on their requirements but that was mostly dry legal stuff about what forms I need to submit to whom and by when.

The on-line grief and bereavement support forums and bulletin boards were full of people who were just as heartbroken and in need of help as I was, and many who might have had the best intentions but insisted that their way of dealing with life is the only way, and that everyone else has no clue.

I spent a lot of money on grief therapy sessions and spent a lot of time with the local priest – both the therapist and priest were well meaning and helpful people but I quickly I realised that they simply put forward the same information over and over again (and it was their view of things , with no flexibility to deal with how I saw the world), expecting me to just accept it and “get over” my grief.

There was no information available about why I and my father were reacting and acting the way we were, nor about what to do, how to understand and move forward. What little I found was either opinion, very locally focused, or put forward from one perspective only, There was no allowance for different needs, beliefs, backgrounds or cultures.

There just had to be a better way!

I was determined to understand what my father and I were going through so I started to do my own research. I read many books as I could find on grief (and there really were not many) and spoke to other people who were also in the process of coping with grief. As I did that, I came to understand that, at some stage in our lives, we all face the loss of someone, or something, that we care greatly about. I also realised that in almost every case, there is absolutely nothing that we can do to prevent that loss, or change the circumstances in which it occurs. Inevitably, then, we all must deal with the fact that, no matter how devastated we feel by the loss, the world around us will go on as if nothing had changed.

I spent literally years of my time, and many thousands of dollars, researching grief and learning all I could to help myself heal. There was nowhere that gave an in-depth set of information on the subject, in easy to understand terms to help me. I had to read hundreds of articles and books and search out each piece of information individually.

“Coping with Grief” is the book that I wished I had at the time!

Once I had put all the information together, I understood that what I was feeling was normal! This allowed me to regain control of my life and deal with my grief step by step.

I learnt that there is no one “right way” to grieve for those we have lost, and that grief affects us all in different ways. What my father and I were going through was a normal and natural process. I also realised that there was no need to be angry with my father, or myself.

I came to understand that my husband and children and my friends were feeling just as helpless as I was. All of them were trying to help me, but none of them knew how to do it in way that made sense to me.

As time passed I resolved to find, and bring together, that information that I had so desperately needed, to make it available for others. This is why I wrote “Coping with Grief”.

“This book has helped me understand and forgive myself. I have now found the strength to go on…”

Narelle 1, Sydney, Australia.

What I am offering you is the information and the knowledge that will help you understand that grief is a natural reaction to death and loss. Knowledge that will help you understand why you feel angry and helpless, why you have trouble sleeping, and why simple things seem to be so hard to do.

In this book You will find

Real, Practical Information – The things you need to know and understand to help you better cope with grief and loss.

Emotional Processes – learn how your mind deals with, and processes loss.

Social interaction – learn how to maintain your friendships and deal with social groups whilst you are grieving.

How to support loved ones and friends – learn how to support your family and friends without letting your stress and emotional reactions damage your relationships.

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[psychotherapyconsultants]

Podcast: What Are Cognitive Distortions?



  At some point or another, virtually everyone has fallen victim to cognitive distortions – lines of thinking that are based on things that are simply not true. This doesn’t mean to the level of conspiracy theories, but even the tiniest things. In this episode, Psych Central founder, Dr. John Grohol, explains many types of these distortions, as well as how to address them in order to improve our lives.

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About Our Guest

John M. Grohol, Psy.D. is the founder & CEO of PsychCentral.com, a mental health and human behavior/technology expert, co-author of Self-Help That Works (Oxford University Press, 2013), the author of The Insider’s Guide to Mental Health Resources Online, and is a published researcher. He sits on the scientific board of the journal, Computers in Human Behavior and was previously on the editorial boards of CyberPsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking and the Journal of Medical Internet Research. He is a founding board member and current treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine, and sits on the board of the International Foundation for Research and Education on Depression. He currently oversees PsychCentral.com, the world’s leading mental health resource offering information and support groups to over seven million people each month.

  COGNITIVE DISTORTION SHOW TRANSCRIPT (Computer-Generated)

Narrator 1: Welcome to the Psych Central show, where each episode presents an in-depth look at issues from the field of psychology and mental health –  with host Gabe Howard and co-host Vincent M. Wales.

Gabe Howard: Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s episode of the Psych Central Show podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and with me as always is Vincent M. Wales. And before we get started we want to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, BetterHelp online therapy. Remember you can go to betterhelp.com/PsychCentral and get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private, online counseling anytime, anywhere. Remember, all you have to do is go to betterhelp.com/PsychCentral. Today, Vince and I will be welcoming back Psych Central founder, Dr. John Grohol. John, welcome back to the show.

Dr. John Grohol: Hey, great to be with you guys today.

Vincent M. Wales: Glad to have you again. And we’re here to discuss cognitive distortions with you. I mean if that’s OK with you.

Dr. John Grohol: Yeah. Hey that’s fine by me.

Vincent M. Wales: Awesome. Well can we start by telling our listeners just what a cognitive distortion is.

Dr. John Grohol: Sure. Cognitive distortion is a as a psychobabble term that psychologists and other professionals use to talk about the way that people use thinking in ways that is not very helpful. It’s sort of like a lie that we tell ourselves in our own thoughts.

Gabe Howard: And what’s the negative of this, aside from that you’re lying to yourself?

Vincent M. Wales: I was gonna say, that’s kind of obvious, Gabe.

Gabe Howard: Well, not necessarily, I mean you know what does that fake it till you make it. I mean this is something people say–.

Vincent M. Wales: That’s crap.

Gabe Howard: I’m just saying these these are well-respected terms that you know… “Believe in yourself!” “But I suck at baseball, Dad.” “Believe in yourself!” Wouldn’t that be a cognitive distortion? But it’s deeper than that.

Dr. John Grohol: Yeah. The problem with cognitive distortions is that they are based in untruths. They are lies. They are faulty ways that we tell ourselves something about the way we’re thinking that simply isn’t true. And unfortunately what this does to us is that it teaches us to believe those lies because we hear them so often in our own heads. So I mean if you tell yourself something often enough, you’re going to start believing it. And if that something is a lie, that’s going to be a problem.

Vincent M. Wales: I think I get it. And I think Gabe gets it too. And I’ll bet you that we could probably think of some off the top of our heads. Like I know a lot of people who think in black and white with virtually everything. It’s either this or that. There’s no shades of gray.

Dr. John Grohol: I’d say that’s probably one of the most common cognitive distortions out there is this what psychologists call polarized thinking, black or white thinking, that you’re either perfect or your a total failure. There is no middle ground. It’s black or it’s white. And a lot of times when you hear people talking, especially in certain areas of discourse today, politics for instance, there’s a lot of black and white thinking going on. And as we all know, nothing is usually so simple that it can be boiled down into yes or no. A lot of things are going on in your head and in your life are complex things nuanced things or subtle things and they deserve the subtlety and nuance that they need in order to better understand them, better understand your behavior and what to do about your behavior.

Gabe Howard: There’s a couple of things that I’m very guilty of and I do try to work on them. But me, personally, I see the worst in everything. I just… Everything’s a catastrophe. You know, one little thing is missing, the whole thing is ruined. And I also think that everything is about me, you know like like any little… you know. “Well, that didn’t go so well.” They’re talking about me. I know I’m at a conference with 20 thousand people and I don’t know these people but they’re definitely talking about my thing that I did three days ago. Are these also examples and probably pretty common ones. Are these examples of cognitive distortions?

Dr. John Grohol: Sure. I mean they could encompass a couple of the kind of distortions that could be overgeneralization, in which that we’re coming to a conclusion based upon a single incident or a single piece of evidence. So, if someone is talking about something and you just did that something and and you know that they they know that you did that something and that something was a mistake or a problem, you might be overgeneralizing the fact that they’re bringing this up and you think that they’re pointing to you. So when a person believes that something is directly singling them out, that’s a cognitive distortion that we call personalization. And it’s where you think that anytime someone is is speaking about something in general, like your boss talking about “Oh, you know, we need people to turn their expense reports in on time,” and you know you’re one of those people that doesn’t always target your expense reports in on time, you think they’re specifically talking to you. And they very well may be talking to you, but there may also be 10 other people on staff that also have this problem. So it’s not just about you.

Gabe Howard: And of course it could also be, you know, lighter than that. They could say, you know, we need people to really work hard to get this done. And you could believe that way your boss is saying is that Gabe is not working hard and that’s why we’re behind schedule.

Dr. John Grohol: Absolutely yes.

Gabe Howard: Excellent thank you… I knew we were behind schedule.

Vincent M. Wales: A lot of people too will focus on, for example, just the negative aspect of something and ignore all of the positive aspects of it.

Dr. John Grohol: Yes. And when someone looks at only the negative aspects and only pick out the things that they want to focus on, that’s a cognitive distortion that’s called filtering. They’re looking at things and magnifying only the things that their mind is focusing on. And a lot of times those things obviously are the negative things, and they will completely obliterate and blot out the fact that anything positive happened or occurred, and they will only focus on the negative and of course, that’s not being fair to yourself.

Vincent M. Wales: John, one of the things that we often hear, and maybe maybe in younger people than than older is “that’s not fair.” Right? And in my personal opinion, I think realizing… coming to the realization that the world is not fair is one of the hardest parts of growing up. But some people, it seems, still go through life using fairness as this measuring stick for things. You have any comments on that?

Dr. John Grohol: I think most of humanity is intrinsically drawn to the idea that we need to be or we should be fair to one another. It seems to be ingrained in our upbringing and in most people and even in most cultures, and so when it comes to the realization that the world isn’t exactly a fair place and that some people don’t actually play by the same rules as everyone else, it really is an eye opening experience and we lose a bit of our innocence that first time that we realize that. And it’s important to realize that if you want to get ahead in life and want to get ahead in your own life, because falling back on blaming others for or blaming life for not being fair isn’t going to get you very far, and ultimately isn’t going to get you the empathy or compassion that you’re you’re hoping for from other people because they’ve already realized that life isn’t fair and you’re the one who, apparently, has not yet. So it’s a difficult lesson to learn and we all have to learn it at one point or another and we do our best to try and understand how we can be a moral and ethical being in this world and try to act in a way that’s fair and take those times when life isn’t fair and try and take them in stride and act accordingly.

Gabe Howard: We’re going to step away for a moment to hear from our sponsor and we will be right back with Dr. John Grohol.

Narrator 2: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com, secure, convenient and affordable online counselling. All counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face-to-face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counselling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: We’ve been talking to Dr. John Grohol, the founder of Psych Central, about cognitive distortions and we are back. When I was really sick, before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I just believed that every single thing that happened to me was somebody else’s fault and I can’t imagine that thinking that everything that happens to me is somebody else’s fault is not an example of a cognitive distortion.

Dr. John Grohol: Blaming other people is a cognitive distortion and it’s it’s a result of our belief that other people can actually influence our feelings or make us feel a certain way. Of course they can influence our feelings and our emotions and they… other people have a lot of sway in our lives. But what most people don’t realize is that we actually give them that power to have that sway in our lives, and that’s something that is under our control. So when you blame someone else for the way you’re feeling, you’re you’re actually giving up some of the control in your life and being the ruler of your own destiny, because I think it’s important to realize that your life is yours to live and other people can’t make you feel a certain way or aren’t responsible for your having a physical illness for your having a mental illness. These are the fates that we are given. You have to understand that you can take control of your emotions and your life and ensure that you move forward, understanding that.

Gabe Howard: I imagine that thinking that it should be a certain way that I I should be well I shouldn’t have bipolar disorder. I should have been born rich, my biological father should have loved me… all thinking that the world should have been – I know we’ve already talked about fairness – but I I can’t imagine that just just thinking that things are supposed to be a certain way… is that a different cognitive distortion or is that just go back to the fairness conversation?

Dr. John Grohol: “Shoulds” are another cognitive distortion in the world that we need to be aware of and especially when we’re using them in our own lives because a “should” statement is a statement indicating that someone else is breaking one of your unwritten rules that you have running around in your head. And the problem is of course that most other people don’t know what your rules are. And there’s usually not a very clear or easy way to communicate what those rules are. And that’s where “shoulds” come from. So if you’re in a situation, you’re at a restaurant, you have just been served a meal, and the steak isn’t cooked to the temperature that you asked it for. And you know some people in that situation would be like, I’m not going to ask them to take it back and redo it. That would be mortifying. I would be embarrassed. Whereas another person might be like, of course you should.. That’s… you know, that’s why you’re out eating at a restaurant. So different people have a different perception of a situation. And if if I were to tell you, well you should, you know, make them take that steak back and cook it to your the right temperature, I’m communicating one of my rules to you and it has no relevance to another person. My rules are not your rules. So shoulds are just a good indicator that you’re climbing up a tree there that isn’t likely to end in any kind of positive interaction.

Vincent M. Wales: John, this has all been really fascinating and everything, and I’m sure there are still some common cognitive distortions we haven’t mentioned, but I think what I’d like to ask is, what do we do about them? How do we how do we stop distorting our cognition?

Dr. John Grohol: That’s a great question and I think something that’s often overlooked in these kinds of discussions. The first thing you need to do is to become aware of the distortions that are running through your head. And the challenge here is that these distortions are running through your head every single day, every single day, and probably dozens of times a day for most people and you don’t even know that they’re going on because you’ve never stopped for a minute to think critically about them. Once you identify them and keep track of them over a period of time, usually the therapists recommend a couple of weeks, actually, because you just don’t realize how many cognitive distortions you’re you’re actually employing every day. Then you can start answering those distortions and talking back to them, because the problem with these distortions is that, again, they’re not true. And the best way answer a not truthful argument is with the truth, with the facts. So you need to examine the evidence – does the evidence actually support the way you’re thinking? Because nine times out of 10, if it’s a cognitive distortion, the evidence isn’t going to support your way of thinking. And that’s going to be a clear indication to you that what you’re thinking about in that moment in time is a problem and is probably causing you some concerns.

Gabe Howard: And obviously some things are easier to resolve. An example – Vince and I work together and Vince knows that I think that everything that I touch sucks. It’s just kind of a thing that I have and and Vince suggested that I get a bulletin board and put you know like nice e-mails that I get, thank you cards, awards, things and just you know stick them up on the bulletin board so when I think that I suck, I can look at them. And as you said, I’m now fighting cognitive distortions with facts. Now, that one’s simple, but if it’s something that impacts like your political views or your cultural views or your religious views, I imagine that’s going to be significantly more challenging. You probably just can’t get a bulletin board for that one.

Dr. John Grohol: Yeah I mean we need to focus on the things that matter to you in your everyday life, I would argue, and primarily your relationships with other people, your relationships at work, things that are causing you anxiety or other kinds of problems, mentally or cognitively. I think those are the low-hanging fruit to focus on. I think you know your strategy for putting up some thoughts on a board, and some statements, is a perfectly sound and wonderful strategy. It’s something that anybody can try and do, which is to remind themselves of every time every time you’re feeling down on yourself to remind yourself of something positive that you’ve done, an accomplishment, an achievement that you’ve made, a raise or a promotion you got to work or you know finishing a semester at school. These are all achievements that people could and should be proud of, because they actually mean something and they should mean something to you. You know one of the things that we talk about in cognitive distortions as well, because black and white thinking is such a such an issue, is to really stop and recognize when you’re looking at an issue from a black and white perspective and start thinking about the different shades of gray in that perspective, the different other perspectives, rather than Democratic or Republican, whether I’m doing the chores or I’m not doing the chores. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. If you said you’re going to take out the trash and you didn’t take out the trash, so then you think oh well I didn’t take out the trash. I’m a total loser. I can’t do anything right. That’s usually the sort of thought pattern that a person might have if they have low self-esteem and and they have that cognitive distortion of overgeneralization. And the answer to that is no, I forgot to take out the trash this one time. I’m usually pretty good at taking out the trash, but this week I got busy with something else and I meant to take it out and I forgot and I’m human and that’s OK. Like human beings forget stuff. So that would be an example of of reattributing the event in a way that actually gives proper weight to alternative explanation for you know for what happened, rather than saying oh you’re a loser because you take out the trash, you say, no I’m human, I make mistakes. I made a mistake in this case. I’ll try and do better in the future, and that doesn’t make me a loser.

Vincent M. Wales: And you’re right people do forget things, for example, Gabe has somehow consistently forgotten to buy that bulletin board.

Gabe Howard: I… That’s not true. I actually have the bulletin board, I just haven’t hung it or put anything on it. But I have acquired the bulletin board.

Vincent M. Wales: OK. Baby steps.

Dr. John Grohol: The first step.

Gabe Howard: Yeah. The challenge is really I don’t have any skills to hang things, so…

Vincent M. Wales: I see.

Gabe Howard: That, and I’m incredibly lazy.

Dr. John Grohol: I could see how hammering a nail might be cause of anxiety.

Gabe Howard: I mean you probably shouldn’t give me tools. You never know what’s going to happen. John, thank you for being here. Do you have any final thoughts or words or advice when it comes to cognitive distortions, because as you pointed out – at least I believe you point out at the beginning of the show – this is this is really something that impacts everyone.

Dr. John Grohol: Yeah. Cognitive distortions are at the core of what a lot of cognitive behavioral therapists and other kinds of therapists try and work with people in psychotherapy with. So you’re kind of getting a jump on therapy and your own self-care if you learn more about cognitive distortions and learn how to take control of them in your own life. You might even save yourself a therapy bill or two.

Vincent M. Wales: Thank you. It’s always always interesting having you on, John.

Dr. John Grohol: Always a pleasure. Thank you guys.

Vincent M. Wales: Well again, also thank you everyone for listening in and I hope you’ll join us again next week for the Psych Central show.

Narrator 1: Thank you for listening to the Psych Central Show. Please rate, review, and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you found this podcast. We encourage you to share our show on social media and with friends and family. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/show. PsychCentral.com is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website. Psych Central is overseen by Dr. John Grohol, a mental health expert and one of the pioneering leaders in online mental health. Our host, Gabe Howard, is an award-winning writer and speaker who travels nationally. You can find more information on Gabe at GabeHoward.com. Our co-host, Vincent M. Wales, is a trained suicide prevention crisis counselor and author of several award-winning speculative fiction novels. You can learn more about Vincent at VincentMWales.com. If you have feedback about the show, please email talkback@psychcentral.com.

About The Psych Central Show Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar and anxiety disorders. He is also one of the co-hosts of the popular show, A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. As a speaker, he travels nationally and is available to make your event stand out. To work with Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

    Vincent M. Wales is a former suicide prevention counselor who lives with persistent depressive disorder. He is also the author of several award-winning novels and creator of the costumed hero, Dynamistress. Visit his websites at www.vincentmwales.com and www.dynamistress.com.

      from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/podcast-what-are-cognitive-distortions/